


Ready to Stay

by adara



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Lydia is a Good Friend, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Mentions of PTSD, Minor Scott McCall/Kira Yukimura, Post-Season/Series 04, Pre-Relationship, Protective Derek, References to Depression, Senior year, Sharing a Bed, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Slow Build Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Has Nightmares, Stiles Has Panic Attacks, They'll figure it out eventually, brief mentions of canon-compliant Braeden, like barely mentioned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-03-18 05:06:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13674852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adara/pseuds/adara
Summary: In which Stiles is not doing great post-S4. Derek returns to Beacon Hills to pick up the pieces and redefine a new normal.A series of what was meant to be loosely tied together drabbles but actually ended up being 18 chapters of slowburn angst, some scattered supernaturals, and an eventual happy ending with all the Sterek.





	1. I need you to miss me.

**Author's Note:**

> A collection of loosely tied together responses to [this tumblr prompt list](http://eggsy-youcheekytart.tumblr.com/post/170314498102/writing-prompts). Chapter titles are taken directly from the list and then just grew from there.
> 
> Story title comes from the song "Ends of the Earth" by Ben Schneider/Lord Huron  
>  _I was ready to die for you baby, doesn't mean I'm ready to stay._  
>  What good is livin' the life you've been given if all you do is stand in one place
> 
> By my math, and I can be wrong here, Stiles is 18 in his senior year when this series of drabbles begins. When Nogitsune!Stiles tried to frame Derek and Chris for murder in s3 Stiles was 17 so I don't think that's a stretch. Hoechlin has said Derek was meant to be 19 in s1 so that puts them at a four year age gap, like Hoechlin and Dylan, so let's assume that's what we're working with here so Stiles is 18 and Derek is 22.
> 
> Standard Disclaimer: Regrettably, I do not own Teen Wolf. I have only seen through S4 so I'm taking it from there because frankly it's bullshit that they went through so much to find him and get him back only to have him leave. Un-beta'ed so if you see any errors, please let me know.

Stiles dropped his book bag on the floor as he entered his room and flung his jersey onto the pile of clothes in the corner. Plopping down into his chair he pulled his laptop over toward the edge of the desk and pulled open the lid, pulling his phone out of his pocket and setting it on the desk next to it. He was so tired of Friday night games. Scott said they were just returning to the median and this midpoint of normal school days, afternoon practices, homework, contemplating college admissions, and simple Friday night games where they literally just showed up and played lacrosse. No power outages, no screams, no blood, no lurking bad guy in the darkness.

So nobody had tried to kill them for the last six months, hooray. He was always on high alert anyways. He was never not anxious. Right now he should be taking a deep breath and relaxing before the weekly cycle of his life repeated once more. Instead, he was chewing on a pen cap and rhythmically tapping away with his fingers on the desk while staring blankly at the splitscreen map and spreadsheet tabs he had open. Thinking of neighborhoods that could accommodate apartments for them all to stay together or at least in a decent proximity to one another and to schools they could get into and would want to get to was all he could think of. Scott didn’t seem at all bothered by it, whether he was just a ceaseless optimist or was so used to Stiles pulling it all together in the end or what, he didn’t seem phased. Stiles mounting anxiety told him there was nothing more important than keeping the pack together.

 _Erica and Boyd are gone. Alison. My fault._ His mind recoiled at even the near mention, the near thought of her. _Isaac. Even Jackson._ _How the hell did I get to the point where I would feel a void in my life from not having Jackson freaking Whittemore around?_

The biggest missing piece, the one he felt the most, was Derek. When they had all cleared out after La Igelsia there hadn’t even been words. Not that Isaac or Jackson had said anything specifically to him either but at least Chris kept in touch with Scott with updates and Lydia periodically made a comment about something in London. He knew they were ok.

Stiles clicked over to his email, switched to the inbox he’d created solely for sorting through his less mundane topics and refreshed about six times. He pressed his lips into a thin line and his eyes went down to his nearly dead phone. He plugged it in to charge and resisted checking his messages. Well, he resisted for all of seventeen seconds. With each day that passed he didn’t know what he was hoping for that was outside of his normal texts with the pack. He was waiting for something.

With a deep sigh he pulled the phone back over to him. No new voicemails, no surprise. No new texts, also no surprise. Still, a coolness pooled in his gut and he found himself scrolling to the bottom of his list. The last text he had from Derek was a brief and very Derek-y response to something about a month before La Iglesia. He’d been pulling back from them all as his powers waned and nobody had noticed, assuming he was busy with his bounty hunter/maybe girlfriend as they were all busy with the Dead Pool and everything else being thrown at them.

Stiles didn’t know what Derek was doing. If he was safe. If he was ever coming back. If he missed Stile too. Well, obviously not. But maybe he missed the pack.

Stiles thoughts drifted again, like they did most days, to Derek bleeding out in the moonlight in Mexico and telling him to go. He couldn’t go. He couldn’t leave him there to die. He tried to go and do as he was told. He kept stopping and looking back. His mind told him to listen to Derek and run in to help Scott and Kira as his blood ran cold at the thought. Something in him ignited as he gave Derek one last look before finally running inside. Spark or not, conscious or not, he had a niggling feeling that he had quite possibly willed Derek to just fucking heal, just one more time, just be better, just don’t die. Somehow.

Stiles didn’t know what Derek was doing now but he’d be lying to say he didn’t know he was safe. Stiles _did_ know he was safe, could feel it even if he didn’t think about it too directly. He could feel it like a string tied them together. Another somehow. To an extent, he felt a connection to the whole pack and could tell they were ok. He felt the pull of Derek’s string most acutely, most constantly, like a dull thrum in the background. Maybe his spark really liked the Weasley’s clock idea or something because he seemed to always know when they were heading into mortal peril even if he couldn’t place all the facts and even if it was nowhere in the ballpark of the specificity Lydia brought to the table. So he knew Derek was ok even if he didn’t concretely know Derek was ok.

It had come to him through the grapevine that Isaac and Jackson wanted to come back for college. Stiles pulled his map tab back up, compared it to his annotated paper copy. They were already a part of his planning even before he heard they were coming back and that hole he felt in their absence seemed somewhat soothed at the prospect of their return. He pulled the pen out of his mouth and drummed it on the worn corner of the map. If Derek came back, would he go with the pack? Stiles was absolute shit at predicting Hale behavior so he couldn’t even hazard a guess. Having accomplished literally nothing aside from further stressing himself out, shut the laptop lid closed and pushed it back from him again. He glanced down at his phone again, screen black.

“I need you to miss me. I need you to come back. When you can,” He said quietly to the phone as if it would somehow get that message to Derek even though he could just as easily use said phone to call him, text him, or even email him something that was actually coherent. But he wouldn’t. He never did.

He didn’t want to push Derek into communicating with him if he wasn’t ready. Derek's life had been pretty shitty the last few years and his uncle had basically just plotted to kill Scott for his alpha spark and use his packmates as weapons to do so, which probably added another layer to the trust issues he already had going for him. If he had wanted to talk he would’ve said goodbye. He would’ve reached out in the last six months. But he didn’t and Stiles wasn’t about to force him for his own benefit, just because it would make him feel better to hear from him. Derek had had too many people force him into things for his own benefit and Stiles did not want to be part of that list, Nogitsune notwithstanding because they had talked about that.

Derek had actually been pretty much the only person who he could talk to about that when he was finally ready to. The guilt, the anger, the responsibility. Derek mirrored it all and was the only one who didn’t offer false platitudes in the aftermath. Stiles missed having someone that seemed to get all of him, even if it was the last person he would have expected. Planning for the future was so hard when you weren’t sure you would have a future, you weren’t sure you deserved a future, and you weren’t sure which of your packmates would live to see it. He ran a hand through his hair, ignoring the slight tremor that picked up whenever he spent too long thinking of his darkest days, and headed to the shower.

When he walked back into his room after finishing up, the phone screen was alight with a new message received.

 _Incoming Message 10:23pm_ >> _I can._

Did Derek seriously just text him after six months of radio silence? He practically ripped the phone up off the desk in his haste to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. He unlocked his phone and clicked the message. It seemed like a response to something. But Stiles had not actually texted him, had not written him when the screen was unlocked before and opened to their text thread. Did he mean to text Stiles? What did he mean? Stiles had never hated Derek’s short, concise texts as much as he did just now even while his heart was hammering in his chest with the joy of having heard from him.

He stared down at the phone in his hand, unsure how to proceed. He didn’t want to text back for clarification and look like an idiot. He didn’t want to ask if it was meant for him and look like an idiot. He just missed him, like an idiot. He ran his hand through his hair for an entirely different reason this time, gave it a little tug as he huffed out a breath. I can. I can what?

 _Outgoing Message 10:47pm_ << _k_

 


	2. So…what now?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek comes home to Beacon Hills.

The weekend ended uneventfully. The sheriff and his deputies had politely eaten the banana oatmeal muffins he’d dropped off at the station Monday morning on his way to school. They were heavy on the ground flax and he’d used applesauce instead of oil because it was healthier that way and because he could also get away with halving the sugar. They weren’t Gordon Ramsay level of deliciousness, but they were low cholesterol and they had dietary fiber. Fiber is important.

Nobody cares about fiber. Nobody is fooled by the pretense of healthy eating habits. It is glaringly obvious that Stiles has only one remaining parent. A parent who works in a moderately dangerous field, especially given that he’s situated right in the center of the giant supernatural clusterfuck that is Beacon Hills and Beacon County. Stiles can’t control or change the risk of his dad’s job but he absolutely took it upon himself to control any other factors that could take his dad to an early grave.

Stiles rattled off statistics like, “Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, dad. Nearly 1,740 people. A day. We’re eating heart healthy.”

If only the sheriff had a dollar for every time Stiles casually brought up things like heart disease, risks of diabetes, and did you get your flu shot yet because you know the flu is like really bad this year right dad. He’d be rich. He’d have enough money to pay of the portions of his medical bills that weren’t covered by his health insurance and the worker’s comp from his multitude of on the job injuries. Heck, even Stiles’ MRI cost thousands of dollars before the rate was adjusted for insurance. A couple hundred dollars was still a hefty co-pay but they were fine. Stiles worried about it anyways.

“We take care of eachother.” Stiles had said. He meant it. So he baked stupid muffins that did not have the fluffy, lovely texture and flavors of the muffins that the coffee shop by the school sold. He mandated his dad eat a salad for lunch at least three times a week, light dressing was acceptable. Grilled chicken only, no crispy chicken for you. If he rode along with him on a night he just didn’t want to sit home, he could be talked into a chocolate milkshake.

“Milk has calcium. Calcium helps build strong bones. Bone mineral density is no joke, Stiles. Men are twice as likely to die after hip fractures and chocolate has antioxidants that are supposed to be good for something,” was usually the sheriff’s go-to angle when they pulled up to the drive-thru menu board. “I need a large chocolate milkshake to live a long and healthy life.”

Stiles would narrow his eyes for a moment before his face twisted into a smirk and he would always respond, “Well, it sounds like you’ve been listening to your doctor. Just this once. For science. For the calcium needs of your future unfractured hips. Two large chocolate shakes.”

“They also have two apple pies for a dol-”

“Nope.”

“Apples have Vitamin C. An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

With an aggrieved sigh, Stiles would roll his eyes and give a minute shake of his head. He didn’t really buy the excuse and he had a whole monologue about the nutritional properties of apples and how they vary between fresh apples and what they were about to consume that was being passed off as apple pie but was really more of a thicker poptart, but he allowed his father many things just as his father had always given him quite a bit more leniency that he deserved. The sheriff would order and they’d eat in the car while he drove. It reminded him of when he was little and the world was safe, when scary things were only in movies and not prominent features of his daily life.

Despite having school early the next morning, last night had been a milkshake night. He felt that constant thrum in him grow to move of a buzz since Friday night and he could not settle at home. Scott was working at the clinic during the day, pulling extra hours whenever he wasn’t at school, practice, or making heart eyes at Kira. Stiles did not want to be home and buzzing. He had done his lacrosse drills in the back yard, extra laps at the track (he still steadfastly avoided the cross country track unless he had Scott with him), as many reps of sit ups, pull ups and push ups as he could stand, and then he baked some muffins. He fell down the rabbit hole of online healthy baking blogs and once his first batch was cooled and safely packaged on the counter he had made his way to the station.

His late night visits weren’t unheard of. They had actually increased in frequency in the past six months. Stiles had always had trouble sleeping. The mounting layers of stress and trauma that came along with his new life had not helped. He was too anxious for prescription sleep medication because being a light sleeper had literally saved his life at least once and he wasn’t accepting of the risk of being knocked out. He didn’t like the groggy feeling and the loss of control. He never wanted to feel that way again. So he dealt with it the best he could, cat naps and caffeine paired with an unhealthy dose of distractive vices like healthy baking and popping by the station.

It would be hard to quantify exactly how much sleep Stiles was actually getting, so he didn’t even try. He rolled into the parking lot Monday morning polishing off the last muffin. He rolled through the motions of the day, hitting up the vending machines twice between classes for a coke and downing a huge iced tea with his lunch. He still managed to nod off slightly in AP English, his last class of the day. He woke with a start when the bell rang, clambered out of his seat in a flurry of waving limbs and grabbed his bag.

When he got near his spot in the parking lot that buzzing feeling combined with his adrenaline from the bell-induced afternoon jumpstart kicked into high gear. The hair on the back of his neck stood up and he narrowed his eyes, swiveled around to look behind him and survey the flood of students exiting the building towards the busses and the parked cars. His heart hammered in his chest and he took a steadying breath before deciding there was no imminent threat that he could perceive. Just a standard, run of the mill afternoon for a hypervigilant 18 year old with PTSD and a history of some really messed up happenings at this particular locale.

He was wrong. Well, not wrong exactly but he’d definitely missed something on his visual assessment of his surroundings. Stiles, by virtue of being Stiles and also being the son of the sheriff, was usually very observant and could piece together details and tie together disparate threads to see the whole picture. A talent that had definitely saved their asses on more than one occasion, he might add. But he missed the Toyota parked in the spot behind his beloved jeep. It had blended in too well with the other cars in the lot and he hadn’t looked twice at it.

Six, five, four or even three months ago he thinks he would’ve noticed that car immediately. It’s like the Jeep song by the Dresden Dolls he had thought one day and rolled his eyes at the ridiculousness. Every time he saw a Toyota of near enough the right shade and model his heart would skip a beat and he would strain to see the driver. He’d consciously had to break the habit of being jolted by the car. It’s a freaking Toyota. They’re everywhere.

As it stands, the exact Toyota is right in front of him. The exact driver he had been hoping to glimpse all those times actually behind the wheel. Bookbag hanging awkwardly off one shoulder, Stiles sucks in a deep breath and leans against the rear driver side of his jeep with wide eyes. Derek freaking Hale climbs out of his car, for once choosing to move like an actual human instead of creeping along the sidelines somewhere or posing like some sort of model or sculpture of a Greek god waiting to be noticed. He just climbs out of the freaking car like it’s a normal Monday occurrence for him to be here, like he does this all the time. Like it hasn’t been over six freaking months of absolutely nothing.

He mimics Stiles’ posture, leans against the front of his car just feet away. He looks good. He is in a nice olive t-shirt that accents his tan, deeper coloring than he’d had the last time Stiles had seen him. Not bleeding out through his abdomen, no obvious wolfsbane bullets or other life-threatening injuries, no obvious signs he was in need of anything. He’s got a half smirk going as Stiles completes his clear once over.

“Stiles,” he says by way of greeting.

“Derek?” Stiles can’t help the questioning lilt it comes out as.

“In the flesh.”

He gives Stiles his own once over after a beat, brows furrowing slightly at whatever he finds fault in. Stiles is aware he’s got flaws. He could list them. Had listed some of them at length to Morrell once, before the whole alpha pack emissary thing. But now was not the time for him to mentally spiral into cataloguing everything that was wrong with him. Stiles starts to frown.

“So… what now?”

Derek looks briefly contemplative before schooling his features back into blankness. He nods back towards his car, “I’ll give you a ride.”

Was that supposed to answer the question? Was there impending doom? Why couldn’t Stiles drive his jeep to wherever they were going to avert whatever supernatural crisis that had cropped up? Did he need to get Scott, Lydia and Liam first?

He’d only gotten halfway started on another mental spiral before Derek cut in, interrupting his thought process with a clipped, “You look like you’re going to fall over if not for that jeep propping you up right now. Anyone could see that. Plus, you reek of too much caffeine.” _And not at all like your room_ , he thinks but does not say.

 

Stiles makes an offended squawk and straightens up to prove that he is, in fact, capable of standing up without assistance. The giant yawn he lets loose betrays him almost immediately. He glares at Derek and stomps over to the passenger side of the Toyota, throwing in his bag with more force than necessary.

 

“I’ve driven on less.” He grouses when Derek climbs into his seat next to him.

 

Derek raises an eyebrow at that but backs out of the space without a word. Stiles has his arms crossed over his chest in protest of being treated like a child and that buzzing feeling has grown so intense that he actually rubs at his sternum as if it will quell the sensation. Derek glances at him more fully, a look of what could possibly be construed as worry painted across his face.

 


	3. I promise I’ll come back.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is tea and talking.

“I know the whole silent, brooding thing is kind of your shtick but, like, while I am many things a mind reader is not one of them so cough it up. What brings the mighty Derek Hale back to Beacon Hills?” Stiles spits out probably a bit rougher than he intended as he side eyed Derek in the front seat next to him.

This is not what he pictured Derek’s return to be like. They were generally either Derek cropping up in time to help save the day during some supernatural disaster or showing up to a pack meeting or somebody’s doorstep to proclaim the coming of the next big bad. Derek showing up uninjured in the parking lot on a cloudy Monday afternoon seemed kind of anticlimactic.

Derek quietly keeps driving, lips pressed in a thin line though Stiles can’t read from this angle if it’s in contemplation, agitation or in an attempt to not say his mind. Stiles huffs when he can tell he’s not going to get an answer.

Derek pulls the car to a stop outside the coffee shop by the school and grunts out a gruff, “Stay.”

He practically flings himself out of the car before Stiles brain catches up and he calls out, “Was that a dog joke? Are we doing dog jokes now?” Before grumbling to himself that of the two of him, he certainly should not be on the receiving end of dog jokes. Derek was already halfway through the door but the glare he shot back at Stiles told him that he’d heard him well enough.

Stiles moved every dial and touched every button in the car in the few short minutes it took Derek to return. He changed the radio station to the local college station but didn’t have the volume up that high, just enough that Derek would hear it and hopefully notice Stiles’ minute digs at him, micro-invasions of his mobile territory. When he climbed back in the car with two cups and a paper bag with more grace than a figure skater, Stiles remembered that he still didn’t know what exactly was going on. Derek all but thrust one of the cups into his hands.

“I thought you didn’t approve of my caffeine intake,” Stiles commented petulantly as he accepted the cup.

Derek pulled away from the curb, signalling as he did so like a good little licensed driver in the state of California who presumably did not want to be pulled over with the sheriff’s son in his car.

“It’s chamomile tea, Stiles. Just drink it.” Derek said and Stiles ran through all the properties of chamomile he’d learned in his extracurricular herbalism studies over the summer. It paid to be prepared, though the more supernatural elements to various herbs were things he learned about only from Deaton and what books Deaton would let him leaf through in the back office while Scott was working. He still learned a fair bit about the regular old normal qualities of the various herbs. Which brought him back to his mental list on chamomile.

“Matricaria flowers. The opposite of caffeine.” Stiles mused as he popped the lid off to inspect the contents.

“Wasn’t planning on poisoning you. It’s just tea.”

“As if you’d _tell_ me if you planned on poisoning me? Would kinda defeat the purpose there, Derek.” Stiles responded, seeming to easily fall back into how they used to be. Before.

They pulled into a small lot behind a string of buildings. Stiles looked up at Derek in askance. Wherever he thought they were going, this was not even on the list of possibilities. Derek remained mum, just grabbing Stiles’ bookbag along with the paper bag and the other cup from the coffee joint as he exited the car. Stiles blew briefly on his tea before recapping it and climbing out to follow. He wasn’t feeling any impending doom and his heart rate had long since returned to normal since the school parking lot. He still felt that tightness in his chest though as he followed Derek up a whitewashed wooden staircase at the back of one of the buildings.

Derek paused at the landing and shifted the cup he was holding into a three-fingered grasp in the same hand as the paper bag. He dug his keys back out of his pocket and unlocked the door, gesturing Stiles in.

For what seemed like the millionth time today, Stiles was surprised. Derek breezed in past him, shutting the door behind him on his way. They were in an apartment. Like a normal apartment that normal people would live in. Derek deposited the bookbag on a chair at the kitchen table and plopped the cup and bag down on the counter.

Stiles mouth was gaping like a fish. He turned around and took in his surroundings. There was a living room off the the left and the door they came in entered into this small kitchen with a dinette table that was old enough to have definitely been around as long as the old stove and fridge had. Derek was leaning back against the counter, hands in his pockets and eyebrows raised in silent question to Stiles.

“And this would be?” Were the only words Stiles could string together. The place was bare bones furnished but already seemed more homey than the loft.

“An apartment.”

“An apartment?”

“People live in them.”

“Ha. Ha.” Stiles huffed out drily before continuing. “Big change from the loft.”

Derek looked a bit like he’d been punched in the gut by that and Stiles almost regretted it before he remembered that he was the one who had blindly accompanied Derek without knowing where they were going or what was going on so he nudged away the feeling that he should maybe tone down the rude and directness. He was all about the directness and the side of rude that came with it just happened that way, okay. And Derek owed him an explanation.

“I couldn’t-” Derek started. He took a steadying breath and ran a hand down his face as if steeling himself for something. “I couldn’t go back there. I stayed after Boyd and I shouldn’t have. After Cora and Peter, I just can’t. I own the building. I could demolish it and start over but I haven’t really put too much thought into it. It was easier to just come here. These are Hale properties and I haven’t exactly been focussing on the property management end of things so we had a lot of vacant spaces.”

Ignoring the obvious emotional sharing that he’d just wrenched out there, Stiles went for the angle that seemed to carry the most levity. “So you picked the 70’s grandma pad?”

Derek shrugged, “It’s fine. It’s close.”

“Close to?”

Derek didn’t answer, just grabbed his cup and his bag and wandered into the other room assuming Stiles would follow. He did. _Close to? To the coffee shop? Definitely close to school, it’s actually pretty centrally located to all of us. That could be strategic. Is he staying? Is he staying? Did he pick this to stay close?_ Stiles thoughts flew at him at rapid speed in just the few steps it took to cross into the next room.

Derek had positioned himself on a faded floral couch and nodded towards the open spot next to him. It wasn’t like there was really other seating in the room besides a literal wicker rocking chair. A floral couch and a rocking chair. This really was an old lady pad. Shouldn’t he be in a bachelor pad with like monochromatic decor and a sweet sound system and blackout curtains? Stiles was again torn from his thoughts and his tea sipping by an abrupt rustling. Derek presented him with an enormous cranberry muffin and directed him to eat.

Stiles did not like being told what to do but he’s a growing boy and nobody says no to free food, ok. He inhaled the muffin and finished his tea.

Leaning back in the surprisingly comfy couch he leveled Derek with what he considered to be his no nonsense look, “So, are you back back or what? Are you here to herald the doom of Beacon Hills? Is there some research question you absolutely needed to ask in person because God knows you haven’t deigned to call or email or text after you literally _rose from the dead_.”

The bastard just shrugged and passed the second cup, another unopened chamomile tea, to Stiles who scowled at it.

“You can’t butter me up with calming tea and delicious baked goods, Derek.”

“I texted.” Was his only response, though at least he had the grace to be sheepish about it.

“What?! Who? Scott? Because you sure didn’t feel the need to text me all this time? I didn’t know if you were even ok. You swanned off without a fucking _word_ to me and I haven’t heard from you in _six_ fucking months, Derek. I get that we’re not BFFs and we didn’t exactly talk all the damn time but after-” He couldn’t mention the Nogitsune but the way his expression darkened, he knew Derek would know without saying,”-after, I just thought. I just thought that I was worth at least saying goodbye to. I understand that some heavy shit went down. I was fucking there for that, I get it. Your life is a series of what the actual fuck situations, I get it. I get not wanting to come back here and be haunted by Peter’s repeated betrayal and everything else that is this fucked up vortex, I really do. But what the fuck, dude?” Stiles words poured out of him, voice sounding rougher than he’d intended to but there was no taking it back. Derek could surely hear his pulse bounding as he finished his word vomit.

“You. I texted you,” came the quiet reply. If he hadn’t been listening for it and literally looking at Derek as the words passed his lips, Stiles would’ve sworn he’d imagined it.

“Are you serious right now?” Stiles pitch was way higher than normal, clearly not masking his disbelief. “You texted me _two words_ on _Friday_ and I wasn’t even sure it was for me!”

“Of course it was for you. You asked and I answered.”

Stiles sputtered at that, heartbeat picking back up and the calming sensation from the tea now forgotten. When did he ask? What did he ask? He hadn’t communicated with Derek in any way, had made a point not to. What the actual fuck.

“It was like- I just, I heard you.” Derek was quiet, resigned even, but the normal gruffness that Stiles was so used to was nowhere to be seen. “I swear I heard you even though I knew you weren’t there, like you needed me to come.”

That buzzing sensation in his chest snapped sharply and Stiles audibly gasped, sinking further back into the couch. He vaguely recalled having said something along those lines Friday night when he had gotten home and wishing Derek would know he was missed but he hadn’t consciously tried to drag him back. He would’ve been here if he wanted to be. So Derek was here out of some sense of duty because, in some way Stiles was too bone-deep tired to piece together right now, he’d caused Derek to give up whatever happiness he had found outside of the stifling horror that was Beacon Hills. Stiles remained silent and watchful as he took in the rest of Derek’s words and his mind tried to spin them all together into something comprehensible.

Looking for all the world like these words were practically being ripped from him, Derek said softly, “I promise I’ll come back, I said. I don’t know how I heard you but I know I couldn’t have imagined that and I didn’t know if whatever it was went both ways, if you heard me. So I texted and you answered. I’m here because you needed me to be.” His eyes roamed over Stiles as if he was being assessed and found wanting, “Looking at you, I can see why. You need to sleep Stiles and if it’s night terrors again we will deal with it but you need to sleep. There’s a bed in the back bedroom, if you want, and I’ll be here. I’m here and you’re safe and it’s ok. If there’s something going on in town that the pack needs help with, we will deal with it. Whatever it is, you can’t help anyone if you can’t help yourself.”

As if he knew exactly what was going on in that head, and maybe Stiles’ face was broadcasting the roller coaster of his internal monologue because he was expending zero energy on masking his expression in a room with a dude who can literally smell emotions, Derek took the tea cup back out of his hands and set it down.

“It’s like they say on the airplanes, you have to put your own oxygen mask on before you can help others. You’re dead on you feet, Stiles. Just rest and everything will be ok.” Derek said slowly and quietly as if he was speaking to a scared, cornered animal of some kind.

Nothing is ever that easy and nothing is ever really ok but Stiles allowed himself to be directed to the back bedroom that Derek had indicated. He barely glanced around at the room before promptly flopping face first onto the musty bed. He had about enough energy to flip the pillow over, hoping to not get a nosefull of dust, and then he let his heavy eyelids fall shut and his weight be held by the bed. He’d kept himself so tightly wound up at all times, always on guard. But now, with Derek on the other side of the door and that buzzing having died down to nearly a purr, he didn’t have to be on guard.


	4. Come back with me.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scott appears and Stiles heads home

Derek leaned his forehead against the cool wood of the bedroom door and tried to not creepily listen to Stiles’ breathing even out. He stayed there another five minutes before moving back out to the living room and firing off a text to Scott to let him know Stiles was with him. Surely he had noticed Stiles' absence or at the very least noticed his jeep hadn't left the school lot.

He’d gotten one of those ridiculous iPhones a few months back after Lydia had insisted that it was in his best interest to do some GPS something sharing with Scott if he was going to be lone wolfing it. He picked it up at the post office she’d directed him to and Scott was able to view his location whenever he needed to. He’d know where they were. Lydia had probably enabled that on all the pack’s phones and, so long as Scott’s phone was suitably secured at all times, that probably wasn’t a bad thing. They did run into more than their share of trouble and GPS was potentially a simpler option than trying to catch a scent.

There wasn’t much in the quick sweep of the cabinets save for some extremely old canned goods. He wasn’t surprised. If he was staying the place would need some straightening up and definitely some food. He thought about heading down to the car to grab his duffle but wasn’t sure if the sound of the creaking door or the old wooden stairs would disturb Stiles. Granted, he practically looked like a zombie and would probably sleep through an earthquake at this point but Derek did not want to risk it. 

Stiles was angry and skittish and the last thing he needed was for Derek to say that he would be here and then not actually be there when he woke up. If anything, it would make everything exponentially worse.

 

***

 

Just as he had suspected, Scott knew how to find them. Whether it was with his nose or the GPS sharing, he ambled quietly into the living area and sat quietly next to Derek with an eyebrow quirked up questioningly. 

“Alpha McCall,” Derek greeted, quietly so as not to wake Stiles. 

“Not that I’m not happy to see you back in one piece, Derek, but I gotta ask- what brings you back?”

Derek’s eyes briefly glance back toward where Scott can surely hear Stiles sleeping. He looks meaningfully at Scott, his eyebrows doing half the talking as they raise up disbelievingly at the younger wolf. 

Scott has the grace to grimace at that, raising his hand up to rub worriedly at the back of his neck. “Yeah. About that-”

“Scott he looks like death warmed over. What the hell have you guys been getting into? If it was that bad here you know you could’ve called me.” Derek said sternly, voice remaining low despite the gravity of his words.

Scott threw his hands up in front of him like he was a nervous 16 year old and not an adult and an alpha of his own right, “Hey, man, hey. Nothing!”

Scott grimaced again as Derek’s face clearly showed he found that statement hard to believe despite Scott’s pulse remaining steady under the pressure of his gaze. 

“Seriously, Derek. It's not like that. At all. Nothing has tried to kill us in over six months. My grades are up. The lacrosse team has had zero absences for both practices and games all school year which is a feat unheard of in Beacon Hills. I have a standing date night where I have successfully eaten pizza and seen an entire movie without being abducted or attacked. It’s been seriously vanilla, I swear.”

“Then why-”

It was Scott’s turn to look incredulous now, “I don’t know what you even mean, Derek. He was fine at school today, a little tired. I think he was out with his dad last night. Nothing out of the ordinary with that. He’s been working with Deaton a bit after hours but that’s been going slower than frozen molasses so it’s not like he’s overexerting his spark or anything. He’s doing just as well as Lydia in school, as always. You just came back on a bad day. He’s just tired. I’m sure he was going to go home and sleep.”

Derek didn’t believe that for a second. Scott probably didn’t either, knowing Stiles for basically his whole life the more likely thing was that Stiles would’ve gone for coffee, done homework, and prowled both the news and the station blotter for signs of something shifty brewing.

“He doesn’t smell right,” Derek admitted weakly.

“What?”

Derek wasn’t about to admit that he possibly hallucinated hearing Stiles when they weren’t even in the same state, though Stiles had not outright denied having said what Derek thought he heard. Derek hadn’t told Scott he was coming back or even texted him a heads up. Maybe he thought Stiles would tell him. Maybe he thought Stiles was asking him to come back at Scott’s request, except he definitely had not thought that and did not think it now either. He wouldn’t admit what brought him back here or why exactly the first one he’d sought out was Stiles. But omitting things wasn’t strictly lying, not if he chose his words carefully. And what he’d said was not a lie.

“He doesn’t smell right, Scott.” Derek repeated.

“I see him every day. He smells exactly how he always does.”

“He doesn’t. I picked it up as soon as I got into town and it brought me to the school, to the jeep, to Stiles.”

“I would know.”

“Would you though?” Derek asked, tone soft despite the word choice. “You’re grades are good because you’re focusing on school and homework. Making all your practices and games, probably still Team Captain. Kira, your mom, work. Stiles is in AP classes so your schedules can’t possibly cross much during the day. He’s there enough to be a constant presence but he’s not your only focus anymore like he was when I found you two on my land.”

Scott looked mildly affronted but kept his eyes from flashing at the implication Derek was making but not outright stating, “He’s my best friend. He is my brother. I’d know.”

Derek leaned forward a bit, picked up the second cup of tea he’d gotten for Stiles who hadn’t so much as sipped it, and took a sip himself. It was room temperature plant water now but he was banking on those calming properties to help him out here. Words were not his friends. He nursed the beverage pensively for a minute before the thought struck him.

“So my mom used to go on trips sometimes,” Derek started and Scott looked shocked both by the unprecedented sharing and by the sudden change in the conversation. “Like business trips. Meetings with other packs, stuff like that. Sometimes the meetings would be scheduled pretty tightly and she’d be gone for a month or more completing a circuit of them."

"That's how Satomi knew her, right?" Scott asked and Derek nodded.

"When she would come back she would tut at us, the normal mom stuff like ‘my how you’ve grown’ and ‘what have they been feeding you’ and stuff like that, you know. My dad would just shrug it off and say 'you don’t notice the cumulative changes when they happen gradually in front of you' and he was right. We used the kitchen doorway for- well, my mom had started marking all our growth on it. Each of us had our own color sharpie and we’d get to write the date every time she measured us. We didn’t see the change because we were living it but being away with nothing but her memories to hold on to, the changes were more stark for her she would say. Height, scent, milestones. And the lines on the doorway showed us what we already knew to be true, everybody knows their kids grow up, but it was a concrete measurement of an abstract change. It had to be shown to us for us to see what she saw.”

Scott was silent for a minute as he absorbed this, tried to see where Derek was going with it. “So was that like your way of saying I can’t see the whole picture because I’m still inside the frame?”

The corner or Derek’s lip twisted up in a half smile at that as he nodded and sipped more tea, “Yeah. I guess I could’ve gone with that analogy.”

“But, seriously, I haven’t noticed anything and while you’re right that I’m definitely busier than I used to be, he is too. He hasn’t said anything and neither has Deaton. I think if it was something supernaturally worrisome that even as cryptic as Deaton can be that he would tell me. He knows how important Stiles is to me, how he holds together the whole pack.”

“Maybe that’s just it though.”

Before they could get into it further, Scott’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He fished it out, made a brief ‘oh shit’ face and waggled the screen briefly at Derek so he could see it was Melissa calling. He mouthed ‘sorry’ at him as he let himself back out the front door, failing to prevent it from squeaking this time in his haste to answer his mom.

Derek could hear him through the door even without his supernatural hearing, “Mom! Heeeeeeeeeeey. I am definitely on my way home. I was stopping for pizza and then I realized that I don’t have the car today and that would be awkward to drive home with so I just ordered and they said they’d deliver in like thirty?” 

That probably would’ve sounded more believable without the questioning lilt at the end of it but Melissa must have decided to overlook that.

“Love you too, mom. Be home in five.” Scott said as he disconnected the call and immediately dialed to order the pizza he had feigned already ordering.

He popped back in, careful of the door once more. “Sorry about that. Duty calls. But, seriously man, I’m not like blowing you off here and I can kind of see where you might possibly have a slightly more objective perspective on the change in scent thing but I’ve got nothing. I’ve gotta go eat with my mom before she blows a gasket. She’s dead set on maintaining a sense of normalcy. But after that I’ll touch base with Deaton just to check in and I’ll let you know what he says? In the meantime, are you seriously staying here? This place looks like my abuela’s but more depressing and I’m sure the Sheriff would prefer Stiles to spend the night in his own bed not the grandma wolf’s.”

Before Derek could even bark out a gruff response to the dig at his current residence, Scott bounced back out the door. In his rush to make that five minute mark he'd promised his mother, which he was definitely beyond already, he definitely closed the door with more energy than necessary and realized his mistake belatedly.

“Sorry!” He called up before peeling away on his bike.

 

***

 

The sound of springs hit Derek’s ears before door to the back room was slowly opened and a sleepy Stiles stumbled back out, rubbing his eyes and trying to speak over a yawn, “s’that Scott?”

“Was.” Derek replied, glancing over at him.

“He didn’t stay and defend my honor?”

“You’re not locked up here like a damsel in distress Stiles, you were just taking a much needed nap. Don’t be dramatic.”

“Ha.” Stiles said, opening his eyes more fully and leaning in the doorway. “The world is my stage, or something to that effect.”

He noticed Derek sipping the tea and smirked at him, “And you’re a tea thief.”

Derek did manage to look a bit guilty at that and set the cup down. He walked towards Stiles who only stiffened slightly at the movement, there was that skittishness again. “Let’s get you home. Scott says the abuela vibe doesn’t make for a restful environment and I can’t say he’s wrong because you only got an hour just now, at best.”

Stiles rolled his shoulders and stretched a bit, “It was a good hour though.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” 

Derek picked up Stiles’ bookbag from the kitchen chair and held the door open for him. He didn’t bother to lock it up behind him, there was literally nothing worth stealing in there and if the scene really was as vanilla as Scott thought it was then nobody was going to make a play in the center of town.

They hit the drive-thru on the way, Stiles unabashedly inhaling a double bacon cheeseburger like it was no big deal and the necessity of chewing was a social construct. He tried not to eat this kind of stuff around his dad, supportive son that he was, and he was also suddenly starving after that nap. That nap had been the best sleep he’d had in months but somehow it made him more tired. For once he really did want to go home and just curl up in bed.

They rolled up in front of the Stilinski house, dark and empty. There must have been a call out at the station if the Sheriff was covering yet another night shift. They really had to work on their staffing although Stiles tried not to think too hard on that seeing as how both he and Jackson had, on separate occasions, personally decimated their numbers. 

“Come back with me.” Stiles said hesitantly, hand on the door of the car and ready to make a break for it should his embarrassment outweigh his nerve. They still hadn’t really had a chance to talk but also he just felt physically better in proximity to Derek.

“I-” Derek was going to make an excuse, saw Stiles face crack and start to turn way, “I can do that. I’ll meet you inside, I’m just going to move my car down a couple blocks so none of the patrols get antsy about the strange car outside the Sheriff’s.”

A genuine grin split his face, “Good thinking, Hale. See you in there.”


	5. You’re better than this.

Derek parks the car on Weaver Street and makes his way back to the Stilinski house. He’s debating on whether or not to go the usual way, up through the bedroom window, or if Stiles would think that was like weirdly overstepping and he should use the front door like a normal person. He didn’t have to think on it too long because he could hear Stiles on the first floor and, as he got closer, he can see that the front door was left ajar.

 _When is a door not a door?_ The thought comes to him unbidden. He flinches minutely thinking that the last time he’d been in Stiles’ home was in the aftermath of the Nogitsune. Stiles had been able to be openly broken with Derek in a way he shielded from everyone else. It was hard to see him that way, hear how he felt about himself. He talked and Derek listened. Derek talked sometimes too and Stiles listened. He thought Stiles had made some progress and was doing better. He could always put on a brave face against anything- Peter, the Kanima, the Argents, Gerard, the Alpha Pack, Jennifer, Peter again, even to his betas and especially to Scott. He never faltered in front of Scott. He remembered the ride to Mexico with Liam, how Stiles continued to show up for the pack and do what needed to be done. It wasn't just a brave face, he was brave. Probably braver than any of them because he had to most to lose.

Stiles seemed like he was making strides back to feeling whole again though Derek knew he would probably always live with the weight of the deaths on his shoulders, even if it wasn’t really his fault. The Nogitsune was steering the ship and those losses were not on Stiles. He’d tried to tell him as much, once.

Stiles had just looked him dead in the eye and said, “And the alphas killed Boyd and Erica. And Kate killed your family. Would you feel that any less if I peppered you with platitudes like ‘ _It’s not your fault, Derek_ ’ and ‘ _The bad guys did it, not you. Not really?_ ’ because it doesn’t matter that that’s true- you still feel responsible and so do I.”

Stiles was right. They both felt responsible and they would always bear the burden of those that had been killed because of them.

Derek walked in through Stiles' front door and locked it closed behind him.

“In here,” Stiles called from the kitchen. It was a wholly unnecessary announcement because even without werewolf hearing, Derek would’ve heard him shuffling things around in there.

Derek made his way toward the kitchen at the back of the house and leaned against the doorway. Stiles was trying to quickly load the entire contents of the sink and stove top into the dishwasher and had clearly anticipated another minute or so before Derek had made it back. His cheeks had faint splashes of color as he flailed a bit and closed it up with a heavy metallic thunk.

“Sorry about that, it’s kind of a mess in here. Can I get you like a drink or something?”

Derek shook his head no and just watched on silently as Stiles quickly wiped the counters down with a paper towel and shrugged at the kitchen like hey I tried.

He went to grab a Mountain Dew out of the fridge and paused with his hand around the bottle of caffeinated beverage when Derek unsubtly cleared his throat. Stiles huffed in response and grabbed two bottles of water instead.

“Fine then. Come on, Sourwolf.” He said as he elbowed to fridge door shut and shouldered past Derek gently, back down the hallway and up the stairs to his room. Stiles didn't know when his dad was getting home from his unexpected overtime and explaining Derek being in their living room was definitely not on his to do list for the evening so upstairs it was. 

If Stiles had been worried about what Derek would think about the state of his kitchen, he must have forgotten the state of his room. Before all this, Derek distinctly remembered Stiles room and it’s haphazard organization. He’d commented on how it was amazing Stiles could ever find anything in here when he had been over once, The comment had drawn out one of the first true smirks Derek had seen on him since before the Nogitsune had taken over.

“It’s not what it looks like to the untrained eye, big guy. I know where literally everything in this room is and there is a _system_.”

Derek’s eyebrows had raised in disbelief, “Is the system laying everything out in plain sight on every surface?”

Stiles had laughed at that, a real laugh. That kind of was his system, after all, so he couldn’t fault Derek for calling him on it.

Now though, now was different. Derek had thought earlier in the day that Stiles did not smell much like he’d been spending time at home. He smelled of school, the generic scent that permeated when surrounded by swathes of teens, the distinct scent that was police cruiser and the station, nothing that was too unusual for Stiles lifestyle. He use to smell like his room though, like home. Or his room smelled like him, whichever way that worked. But it doesn’t now, not in the same way.

His things are still strewn about but definitely not in an _I can totally play this off as organized_ fashion, more of just literal piles. Piles of laundry including Friday’s lacrosse kit still festering on the floor along with at least two still damp towels. Unfinished glasses, empty bags from chips and snacks, a disturbing number of mostly empty 2 liter bottles of soda, and some Hot Pocket sleeves littered to room. At least he was eating? The things everywhere were still his things but they didn’t smell right, not like they should.

That not right scent again. And Stiles bed looked like it hadn’t been slept in for who knows how long. It was still pristinely made up, the folds of the corners and precision of the tight tuck indicating it had probably been John to make it up last. Derek could smell the fabric softener from where he stood, where he’d stopped right at the doorway. The desk area smelled most strongly of Stiles but even that was not quite right.

Stiles had set the waters down on the desk and plopped into his desk chair. He raised a hand to rake back through his hair and looked up at Derek before lowering it back down again.

Derek inclined his chin, eyebrows scrunching in question but not in judgement as his eyes swept the room once more and settled on Stiles. There was a quiet that had settled between them but the silence was a loaded one. Stiles bites down on his lip and wiggles side to side a bit on his rotating desk chair, just a slight enough rock to be minutely comforting.

Stiles is looking down at his feet and breaks the silence first, “You were right- I mean. Kind of right. Partly right."

Derek raises his eyebrows as if to say _go on, then_. Not that Stiles can see because he’s still looking down but he must be able to tell because he continues.

“It’s not a pack thing. The pack is fine. You didn’t need to come back. You were safe. You had a life outside of here. You were probably happy or something. I’m sorry you came back.” He takes a steadying breath and bites his lip again before finishing lamely, “But you’re right. I can’t take care of them. I can’t sleep. I just exist and I shouldn’t and I had no right to drag you back to this.”

Yeah, no. Any progress that they had made before was clearly lost to the wind. How the fuck had nobody noticed this. Anxiety is somewhat prevalent in most teens but actual, literal despair was rolling off of Stiles right now. Despair, anxiety, soul-crushing levels of fear and hatred. His heart was racing and he was gripping the sides of his seat so tightly now that his knuckles were white.

Derek was leaning over him in a moment, steadying hands on Stiles’s shoulders. It was the first time he’d touched him since he had been back and despite the layers he could feel the lean muscles that Stiles had filled out with in the past several months of training. He could practically hear Stiles rationalizing that pushing himself physically made him better able to hold his own in fights sans claws but he shook that thought away to come back to later. He was still skinnier than he should be and for as focused as he was on his father's dining habits, he was sure eating like shit himself. 

“Stiles. Hey, that is not what I said. At all.”

Stiles did not look up and Derek wasn’t about to push him to do so. He lowered himself to sit back on his knees in front of Stiles, not breaking contact he moved his hands from his shoulders to where his hands were tightened on the chair and giving them a brief squeeze. Stiles grip on the chair loosened just barely at the contact and his eyes met Derek’s now that Derek had lowered himself into his field of vision.

“You needing to take care of yourself doesn’t translate to what you just said at all. The pack may be fine, and I know they are because Scott said as much and because I _know_ you take care of them, but you need to take care of yourself too. You’re not. You’re better than this. You deserve more than just existing- and you absolutely deserve to exist so don’t even- God, Stiles. You deserve to live your life, to enjoy the peace that you fought for here. And do you honestly think you could make me do anything I didn’t want to do? I’m back because I _want_ to be here. You _needed_ me, I heard it. I felt it. I will _always_ come when you need me, Stiles. Always. We are pack.”

Stiles doesn’t say anything, just keeps his gaze on Derek’s. He doesn’t have super werewolf senses to pick up on whether Derek’s heart gives away any of what he just said as a lie, but he can see in his eyes that he means it. He can feel that buzzing feeling that’s been nagging at him start to grow warmer and sizzle like a Fourth of July Sparkler in his veins, starting where Derek’s hands still rest on his and rolling through him like a wave that settles the frayed nerves he’s been nursing and that warmth fills in the void he’s been feeling for months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I don't have a regular update schedule for this WIP but I will aim for at least a chapter a week. My work schedule varies so I'm sorry I can't guarantee like a regular Monday update. If you'd like to chat Sterek, or this fic in particular, hit me up on tumblr. I have a general idea of how I'm going to Sterek up this non-Sterek prompt list but I'm certainly open to your comments on what you'd like to see, if you have any favorite or least favorite parts, if I'm missing any tags, etc.


	6. We still have tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've combined some of the prompts from the list and revised the chapter count. This chapter covers both "We still have tomorrow." & "Don’t worry about it." from the original prompt list. 
> 
> Many thanks to the ever delightful Swflfangirl for listening to me develop this at length as well as assisting me in overhauling this chapter. She is a dear, sweet, wonderful angel and I adore her.
> 
> I've given up on the idea that this is a series of loosely connected drabbles. It was meant to be, I swear. I did not set out to write this. But this is what wanted to be written. So here we have 18 chapters of slowburn angst, some scattered supernaturals, and an eventual happy ending with all the Sterek. Maybe some day my brain will let me stick to drabbles but in the meantime I'll be giving this piece a new title as "Drabbleverse" clearly doesn't suit anymore.

They stay just like that for a minute more, Stiles in his chair with Derek kneeling before him. Derek’s hands still resting gently atop of Stiles’ own, still holding the sides of the desk chair. 

“Pack,” Stiles says warmly, followed by an agreeable little hum.

For the first time in months he feels like maybe Derek was right, maybe it will be ok. 

“So you’re staying?”

“Staying.” Derek confirms.

“And you didn’t eat the grandma that lived in your new apartment before claiming it for your own?”

Derek pulls a bitch face at that even though he knows Stiles is joking. It’s nice to hear him joking and their back and forth is so normal and comforting, to both of them, that he knows he’s got to keep up his side.

“Hey, it’s the whole big, bad wolf modus operandi. Can’t blame a guy for asking. Stiles Stilinski, scrawny protector of Beacon Hills. That includes the helpless grandmas. I have a wolfsbane-infused bat and somewhere I still have that red hoodie-”

“No, I did not eat Mrs. Travieso-Vasquez. She lived there when I was younger, ran the place downstairs I think. She moved to Albuquerque with her sister’s family like ten years ago. I don’t eat any grandmas nor do I murder babies any time I’m out of sight. Plus, nobody could take her even if they tried. She was fierce.”

Stiles laughs. He could laugh again and wasn’t that just a weird feeling after being lost for so long. He sobers quickly when he realizes he’s no longer holding the chair but his hands have moved to hold Derek’s seemingly of their own volition. He pushes the chair back and breaks contact, Derek still kneeling level with him.

“I’m sure babies are delicious and all but I prefer a baby-free diet myself.”

“I can see that.” Derek glances around the room once more as he stands and leans back against the desk.

“Hot Pockets are a legitimate food choice.” Stiles gruffs. 

Stiles pulls out the trash bin from under his desk and hastily scoops in several of the offending packaging remnants. He looks around the room and grimaces at the state of it. How had he let it get this bad? Who even lives like this? 

Well, he wasn’t exactly doing his best job at the whole living thing. He was going to be ok though. Derek had said so and Stiles believes it, coming from him. It’s like waking up even though he isn’t asleep. God, did he ever know that he isn’t asleep. It hits him like the cement floor of the Argent’s basement, hard and fast. If Stiles had been tired before, he was obscenely exhausted now. Leaning against the desk wasn’t helping much and he was slouching further down with the effort of standing.

“Hot Pockets are barely food, Stiles. I’m sure your dad’s eating well. Does he know you’re hoarding all the fat and sodium the frozen section has to offer?”

“My cholesterol is just fi-”

“Can it, Stiles. We still have tomorrow. You can expound upon the intricacies of your carefully curated Stiles Diet tomorrow.”

“And the day after that?”

“And the day after that.”

Stiles smiles at that and allows himself to be pulled to standing and gently nudged toward the bed.

“Go to sleep, Stiles.” Derek says, pulling back the covers and nodding for Stiles to climb in.

“Oh my God, dude. Are you seriously going to tuck me in like I’m five right now?”

Derek pulls to covers right up over his face and lets go, muffling Stiles amused commentary.

“You’re the one who acts like a five year old,” Derek shrugs. 

Stiles pulls the blankets back down and glares, but it doesn’t have the right edge to it so he settles on a hearty eye roll instead. 

“I just want to sleep. For a million years. I don’t know how I’m even still speaking comprehensible sentences at this point. My brain is mush. Warm mush.” 

After that, Stiles is out cold. 

 

***

 

A year prior, Stiles certainly had not been able to fall into sleep so easily. For whatever reason, they’d never really discussed it, Derek had been the one to held him then. Stiles had been having nightmares since his mother died. It was nothing new to him. He sometimes wondered if that was part of why his dad did not mind working night shifts, to get away from Stiles and his inability to control himself and just be a normal person. His dad would always pat him reassuringly on the shoulder with a quick  _ sleep tight _ before slipping back out of the room.

That the nightmares got worse after Gerard, Boyd and Erica did not surprise him. That the nightmares got even worse after the darach and the Nemeton did not surprise him at all. Not being surprised and being equipped to deal with it were two different things though. The terror that had gripped him like a vice since he’d been meatsuit to the Nogitsune was a constant and he was drowning in it.

Who needed sleep? Not Stiles. Not Stiles when he knew what was waiting for him when he closed his eyes. He’d decided to just not sleep. It could be done.

It could not be done. Boycotting sleep did not work. He’d come home to Derek in his room on day three of his freshly post-Nogitsune sleep boycott, gruff as ever. He’d refused to budge from the room until Stiles finally fessed up to what was bothering him. Just the nightmares, not the end of the world and not Derek’s problem. Instead of telling him he was being stupid, as Stiles had expected especially given that was how he felt about the matter himself, Derek had just nodded like he understood. He had reassured Stiles, a disconcerting occurrence in and of itself, and said they’d deal with it. 

Stiles had been too tired to fight it then. He’d just gotten his body back and wasn’t even close to coming to terms with what had transpired, all the destruction in his wake. He huffed out a disbelieving, “Whatever, dude.”

He believed Derek though. He felt whatever it was that was connecting them and held onto it for dear life, both then and now. He was surrounded by death and destruction. It was like he was meant to go down with the Titanic but here was this unexpected piece of debris, just as roughed up as he was, but somehow just the right thing to be a life raft that could save him from being swallowed up by the frigid depths. When he shot up in his bed screaming his lungs out and heaving for breath, Derek had been there. He calmed him down, centered him, brought his staggered breathing and his bounding heart rate back to normal with a seemingly practiced ease. 

It had become a bit of a routine then, barely a year ago now. A routine which Stiles most definitely had not mentioned to Scott and which Scott somehow remained oblivious to despite what must have been the obvious scent of Derek in Stiles bedroom and on Stiles himself at the time. Stiles was still having nightmares but, with Derek’s help, the night terrors became fewer and farther between until all that was left was the nightmares. Even the nightmares were less intense. If he woke up from them, or Derek woke him, he’d been able to sleep the rest of the night like a normal person. 

In just a few weeks, Derek had managed more for Stiles’ just by being there than his handful of sessions with Miss Morrell ever had. Nothing could erase the weight of the damage wrought by the Nogitsune, but peace enough to sleep had been temporarily attainable. Stiles assumed he was doing well enough to get by, so he had told himself it wasn’t a big deal when Derek had stopped showing up. 

Until it was a big deal and it was too late to say anything- Derek had been taken, then they’d gotten him back only to have him bleed out under the moonlight, then to lose him all over again as he drove off under the scorching Mexican sun. There was never a right time to say the things he could hardly fathom words for. 

Stiles remembered constantly searching, both consciously at first and then more subconsciously as the time had passed, just endlessly searching for the familiar combination of leather and a frown- in his dreams, around town, behind the wheel of every stupid silver Toyota.  

He never found what he was searching for. It wasn’t there.

It hadn’t been there for a long while and he had felt the loss as if he were missing some integral part of himself. He had tried to be okay with that, to not think too deeply into it and just keep going.

_ Maybe he’s okay, maybe he’s getting out… he deserves to be happy. _

That had been how Stiles initially stumbled upon his uncanny ability to discern just that information. It had been quite late on yet another sleepless night when he had been circling around the same train of thought. He just  _ needed _ to know, and then he simply did. He had discovered that if he focused, if he tentatively felt around his mind, what could best be described as string clearly labeled Derek was there just waiting to be found. 

He’d learned more about the descriptions and dynamics of pack bonds in his training with Deaton, but had consciously neglected mentioning his differing experience to the older man. Stiles had found it, not exactly what he was searching for but close enough to ease the tightness in his chest. It was at least an iota of what he was missing, when he felt at that Derek string and held tight to it like a lifeline. While it was frayed at the edges and looked a little worse for wear, it was still there. Derek was still there. He was okay.

The memory of how he and Braeden seemed relaxed around one another itched under Stiles skin like an annoying rash, but he knew his own foolish heart and his distrust of Braeden mirrored with jealousy, added fuel to the fire while it had simultaneously added to his stack of piled up guilt. Derek deserved to be happy; Stiles could never begrudge him that. Stiles was not his responsibility and he didn’t need to be saddled with the burden of being the only one who had been able to actually help him.

It would help if he could just get some damn sleep…

Maybe he’d chase the guy down soon, it would give him some peace of mind at least, which could potentially help with the not sleeping thing, right? But Stiles wasn’t sure anything was worth pulling Derek Hale back into the mess of things, even if his own ability to function as a human being was arguably a possibly important something.

 

*** 

 

When Stiles groggily wakes up on the morning after Derek’s surprise return for Beacon Hills, the sun is peeking in through the curtains which were drawn as tightly closed as old, beat up curtains would. There are no sounds of his dad getting ready down the hall either which means he either left already or had never made it home. Stiles stretches slowly beneath the comforting weight of his warm blankets, feels the stretch and popping of his spine breaking the silence of his room. He lays for a moment, considers spending the day as a blanket burrito with some Netflix on his laptop but as his mind slowly emerges from the fog to catch up with reality it dawns on him that it is a Tuesday. He’s got school and practice today.

_ Ugh. Fucking high school _ , he thinks to himself as he goes to roll out of bed. He loses his balance and literally tumbles onto the floor. His spotless floor.  _ What that fuck? _

Stiles looks around his room. It’s legitimately cleaned and organized and he most definitely did not do this. He’d gone to sleep surrounded by actual detritus. He’d gone to sleep. He’d slept! He’d slept like a whole actual night. He checked the time on his phone, he was 100% going to be late for school today but honestly could not care less. He had actually slept and he didn’t feel like he was dying for once, either imminently or slowly. He felt, dare he say it, something approaching the possibility of good. He hadn’t slept this well since, well, since the last time Derek had stayed over.

“Holy shit. Derek!” Stiles facepalms so hard as the memories of yesterday drift to him through the morning brain fog. 

“Down here,” a voice that was definitely not his dad’s carries up the stairs to where Stiles is still standing in shock.

Stiles is literally still wearing his clothes from yesterday, had not even bothered to change or brush his teeth or anything before he slept last night  _ Oh my God, I’m so gross. My room was so gross that Derek freaking Hale cleaned up after me like a toddler. Oh my God. Can the earth please swallow me up now. Ugh! _

Stiles quickly grabs some clean clothes and flings himself into the bathroom. After the world's quickest shower and freshening up, he makes his way down the stairs to find an equally spotless rest of the house. More than that, Derek is apparently some sort of muscled up version Alton Brown and has made himself at home in the kitchen because the table is laid out with actual food. Food that did not come out of the freezer and is not processed. There’s perfectly made coffee, toast, and some sort of cheesy egg and veggie thing laid out for him. 

“Who are you and where is Derek Hale?” Stiles asks, eyes blown wide.

Derek just laughs at him and sits down with his own coffee in hand.

“Did you really just-”

“Don’t. Don’t worry about it. Sit and eat.” Derek says and Stiles complies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would love to know what parts you liked or didn't like, lines that stood out to you, literally anything you want to share. Even if you're eating a Hot Pocket right now instead of eating heart healthy. I ate half a loaf of soda bread while writing this to a loop of Imogen Heap covers and French music so I can't even talk about healthy habits without being entirely hypocritical. 
> 
> Your comments and kudos give me life like you would not believe. If I'm missing any tags or warning please let me know!
> 
> Kudos to any of you who picked up on the Derek “Baby Killer” Hale reference which stems from some late night discourse on DiscontentedWinter’s tumblr.


	7. I've never seen anything more inspiring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the length of time since the last update, I had real world deadlines that took precedence. Adulting sucks some times. In the meantime though, the ever delightful swlfangirl helped me overhaul Chapter Six and beta'ed this chapter as well. SO MANY thanks to her because I can send her messages at all hours and she always writes back, is always insightful, and tolerates my penchant for response gifs even though they're no longer à la mode. She makes the best comments, nudges, and adjustments to my drafts and is definitely on my list of favorite people.
> 
> You may have noticed the title change as well. The original idea for this was a collection of loosely tied together responses to [this tumblr prompt list](http://eggsy-youcheekytart.tumblr.com/post/170314498102/writing-prompts) which the chapter titles are taken directly from. However, instead of drabbles we got this beast instead so I nixed the Drabbleverse title.
> 
> New and improved story title comes from the song "Ends of the Earth" by Ben Schneider/Lord Huron  
>  _I was ready to die for you baby, doesn't mean I'm ready to stay._  
>  _What good is livin' the life you've been given if all you do is stand in one place_

After their quick breakfast, Derek drops Stiles off at school where his Jeep is parked exactly where he’d left it the previous afternoon. He’s definitely late, has missed the first two periods and manages to make it to his third period Spanish class just before the last bell. He makes it through the rest of his morning classes without falling asleep once. He’s so animated while relaying some school day anecdote at lunch that all of his friends exchange silent looks and shrugs with one another and outright stare at him. He is like a different person and the difference is striking. 

This is not the Stiles of yesterday. This is not the Stiles they’ve grown used to. This is Stiles.

Scott grins broadly at him and gives him a firm pat on the shoulder, “Where’ve you been, man? You’re looking good today.”

Stiles knows that Scott wasn’t as unaware as he was playing at. He had been at Derek’s when Stiles was there the day before and had to be able to smell Derek, the Toyota, home and contentment radiating off of him now. 

Lydia, bereft of super senses but the most observant of their ragtag crew, notes with a small pleased smile and a gentle squeeze of her hand over his, “You slept.”

“Everybody sleeps, Lydia.” Liam says around a mouthful of ham and cheese. 

She is undeterred and just pats him on the head like the young little pup he is.

“Not everybody.” Lydia says sagely. 

Stiles sobers a bit at that. He and Lydia had developed a wonderful friendship once he had stopped creeping on her and started treating her like an actual human being but they didn’t sit down over sundaes and have heart to hearts about Stiles’ bad dreams and mental health. He looks up at her assessingly from his lunch tray. She looks relieved, Scott looks happy, Kira is at his side and is basically always radiating happiness, Liam just looks confused and keeps eating, and Malia is oblivious to the whole exchange as she continues to eat her lunch and stare down a textbook like it has personally wronged her. 

“What? How did you-“ Stiles starts.

Lydia raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow and cocks her head to the side, chastising, “You may be the sheriff’s son but you don’t have a monopoly on piecing things together. I have perfectly functional eyes and an IQ over 170. You can’t slip anything past me, Stilinski.” 

Scott gets caught up in talking to Kira about how their mornings went, the continued injustice of them only having one morning class period together, and tunes out of the conversation entirely. Stiles showed up today and didn’t look like death and that was enough for Scott. Everything was fine now. All was well. Right? 

“Lydia-“

“I know you weren’t questioning my intelligence, you’re one of the few who openly acknowledge it in public. Do you want to talk about what brought on this sudden change? I’ve been trying to get you out of this funk for months but you never have time for my thinly veiled study sessions. I knew it was uncharacteristic because I know how much you love my study snacks but you blew off all my attempted to pry into that thick skull. So what gives, Stiles? What’s different? Why now? You look like you spent the last month at one of those float spas and have gotten your youthful glow back, as advertised.”

“Well, I definitely was not questioning your intelligence. You and I are still pretty close in the running for valedictorian unless Danny usurps us at the end of the quarter.” Stiles is cut off again by her lips pressing into an impossibly thin line and a quelling look which clearly communicate the entire lack of tolerance she has for the line he’s walking. 

“I will say,” he starts again, pushing his last bits of food around with his plastic fork, “I didn’t think my sleep habits were of note to you. Also, with those supposedly A+ observational skills you’ve missed a key development Detective Martin.”

She looks him up and down as if she could piece together his meaning by slight clues about his person à la Sherlock Holmes. But there’s nothing different about his clothes or anything else that would indicate change apart from his demeanor and the fact he has some color to his cheeks instead of the faded pallor he had been slowly sinking into these past few months.

“Obviously I don’t consciously make a note of your sleeping habits but you’d have to be blind and an idiot to not see you deteriorating before our eyes. Scott said you were fine,” She lets out an unimpressed huff at the thought and continues. “I was hoping you would say something or ask for help if you needed it. I was trying to chip away, to give you the opportunity with those study invitations outside pack meetings but-“

“Lydia, it’s not your fault. I appreciate that you even noticed anything was up, that you tried to give me space or whatever but, like, who wants to hear my problems?  _ I _ don’t even want to hear my problems. Nobody’s trying to kill any of us right now so really what problems could we even have? Nothing that ranks.” He’s shooting for some levity with that and misses the mark by a wide margin. 

The first bell rings and the cafeteria starts to quickly empty. Stiles and Lydia stay seated while the others rush off to their next classes. She doesn’t take her eyes off him, still trying to get a read on him.

“There is more to life than the supernatural.” She says quietly, watching his features for a reaction which he involuntarily gives in the form of a brief flinch. 

“Lyd-“ Stiles starts and is promptly cut off again. Lydia Martin is nothing if not a force of nature, and she’s got zero chill for Stiles’ diversional tactics this morning.

Stiles tries not to flinch as she cuts into him smoothly, “No. No more excuses. You always put Scott first, your dad first, the pack first. Even me, when you didn’t even really know me. You are constantly showing up for other people even when you have been literally beaten and bloodied, when lives are on the line, when there’s a lacrosse match that you don’t even care about but your friends do, all the time. You stand up, and show up, and throw down all the time, Stiles, for everyone but yourself. I’ve never seen anything more inspiring or more terrifying at the same time- and I know terrifying. You keep us all safe but can’t burn yourself at both ends until you just go out. You can’t. You look like an actual person today, for the first time in far too long. We are having an actual conversation. This is the Stiles we need. So what is the secret ingredient I’ve been missing that results in this you that’s here today? I need the answer key to replicate this. Is there a Stiles Stilinski rubric that will tell me what I need to do to keep you here? I’ve tried food, time, space and nothing has worked at getting you to even slightly budge- so what is this key observation I have missed?”

He shuffles awkwardly in his seat before standing to discard his tray. How does one even respond to the Lydia Martin saying such things to and about oneself? He mumbles to Lydia as he passes behind her with his tray in hand, “Derek came back.”

 

***

 

Two weeks later, Derek returns from an afternoon grocery run to the sounds of rustling from his apartment. He pauses at the bottom of the stairs to listen, arms laden with his bags, before shaking his head and making his way up and inside.

Lydia rounds on him, a victorious smile lighting her features, and gesturing around her. The apartment is unrecognizable. The walls have been painted, the plastic and doily covered furniture has been replaced. It looks like an Ikea showroom, but better. The built-in shelves on the walls have been dusted and are now filled with a variety of books and monochromatic knickknacks. 

Derek sets the the grocery bags on the counter of the kitchen, where the ancient appliances are literally the only thing that remains the same. His eyebrows have made their way practically up to his hairline as he turns back to her in the living room.

“Lydia?”

“No need to thank me. This place was worse than Scott described,” She says before pursing her lips, managing to sound both shocked and offended that such a state of being was even possible. “Besides, this is a thank you for  _ you _ . Welcome home. And thank you.”

She crosses the room and give him a peck on the cheek and a gentle squeeze of his hand as she lets herself out, her work here complete.

Derek looks around, still a bit shocked both by the transformation of the space, the thoughtfulness of the gesture and of the selections, and of the casual closeness and welcome that Lydia had communicated. There was no lie that he could pick up in what she said but he had no idea what she was thanking him for.

He continues to scan his tastefully refreshed space and marvels at how she had squeezed all of this work in on a single afternoon’s worth of his errands was amazing. He could smell the traces of the delivery men, though they’d left no scuffs or messy footprints, and the painters, though they’d used a no-VOC paint on all the walls which had dried quite quickly. He would have gotten to fixing the place up eventually. Possibly. Honestly, he had lived in an old train car and far worse places so probably not.

The bedroom is just as transformed as the rest of the space. There are far too many throw pillows on the bed than he deems necessary, granted he feels that zero throw pillows are necessary, but it is definitely greatly improved from the dusty floral thing the room had going on previously. The corner of his mouth hitches up unconsciously as he thought of Stiles much more happily spreading and organizing his research over the bed and the new desk in there are well, far more comfortable than hunching over the now-replaced coffee table. There’s even a big cork board along the one wall, color coordinated thumb tacks and spools of string at the ready in the desktop organizer. That design element was definitely for Stiles’ benefit and looks like something straight out of a Martha Stewart layout.

He turns back to the groceries and puts everything in its place methodically. Stiles has been coming over for dinner on the nights his dad is working, staying home to cook healthy meals for his dad on the other nights with Derek coming over after. Each night, Derek reads himself a book while Stiles works on homework or insists on researching something  _ just because, Derek, just because _ . Half of Stiles’ books had been laid out on the old coffee table for just that reason and Derek is pleased to see Lydia’s included them in her organization of the shelves, likes seeing tangible pieces of Stiles life settled into his own life.

Tonight is a dinner at Derek’s night and he’d just brought in the last of everything he needed for it. Stiles had laid off a bit on the granny comments since his first visit. Derek wonders what he will think of it when he gets here shortly, now that Lydia has worked her magic. 

Except 6 o’clock comes and goes, the familiar rumble of Stiles’ jeep nowhere to be heard. Derek checks his phone, charging on one of the living room shelves. He has no texts from Stiles other than an affirmation that they were on for “fooding it up” tonight which had been sent around the time Stiles would’ve been getting dismissed from his last period that afternoon.

He could text him or call him, like a normal person. Maybe something came up or his dad got to stay home after all. Maybe everything is fine.

Except he knows it’s not.

He knows that Stiles would have at least texted if his plans changed or Scott would have called if something came up. He tries calling Stiles anyways, hopes that he answers and Derek will just have to play it off. Except it rings out to voicemail and there’s a chill in his bones. He calls Scott, who answers after the second ring.

“Is Stiles with you?” He asks with no preamble whatsoever, as soon as the call connects.

“Derek- what? No. Why?” Scott says, sounding confused and progressively more concerned as he wraps his brain around Derek’s inquiry.

Derek hangs up and just barely remembers to pocket his phone before leaving the apartment and making for the preserve at breakneck speed. He stops briefly when he finds Stiles’ empty jeep at the entrance of the the preserve on the edge of town. He feels his phone buzzing in his pocket, missed calls and texts that he knows aren’t from Stiles, probably from Scott trying to follow up on his abrupt call. He doesn’t have time for that. 

He’s close, he can feel it. Derek catches the scent trail, which diverges quite a ways from the normal footpath. He keeps going at full tilt and does not slow down until he sees Stiles. He’s sprawled on the forest floor beside a tall, skinny birch tree with messenger bag beside him. 

Derek can tell from where he’s standing that Stiles is completely out, heart beating steadily along, and there’s not another scent or sound in the vicinity that seems out of place in the preserve. 

Derek has to remember how to move and breathe, doesn’t remember when he stopped. He’s frozen to the spot for just a moment more before he lurches across the grove of trees to where Stiles is, turns him over gently and sees no obvious injuries.

“Stiles. Stiles, wake up!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eek, sorry to leave it there! 
> 
> Stay tuned for more Scott, Deaton, pack bonds, and exactly what brought Stiles so far out into the woods in Chapter 8.


	8. I wish you'd let me help you carry this

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from [ye olde tumblr prompt list](http://eggsy-youcheekytart.tumblr.com/post/170314498102/writing-prompts).
> 
> This chapter is brought to you by the ceasless encouragement of [swlfangirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/swlfangirl) and the will to live I get from your comments and kudos. Here, have 5,130 more words of this as a peace offering after that cliffhanger.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: Mentions of PTSD and there is a panic attack which is promptly handled. I've updated the tags to reflect this.
> 
> If I am missing any warnings or tags, please let me know in the comments.

He’s halfway back to the jeep, Stiles over his shoulder in a fireman carry, when Scott catches up to them on the trail. 

Before Derek can ask how Scott found them so quickly, Scott waggles his phone at him in a manner reminiscent of the way he’d done back at his apartment on his first night back, like he knew exactly what Derek had been thinking. There’s a map on the screen with a little flashing D pin and a matching S pin. Derek doesn’t ask but can only imagine this was the whole reason Lydia had talked him into the new phone in the first place. 

For as often as they all find themselves in peril, that could certainly come in handy. If Stiles wasn’t literally unresponsive on his shoulder, Derek might’ve had a moment to consider asking Scott how to do that. As it stands, yeah. They need to keep moving. There are too many questions and not enough answers.

They resume making their way back to the jeep at a fair clip as Scott sniffs the air and says, “There’s nothing else out here. What happened? He looks fine but he’s not-“

Derek just shakes his head, “I can’t- I tried to wake him. He won’t-“

“Deaton or my mom?” Scott asks as they reach the edge of the trees, jeep in sight.

Scott gets the door and Derek lays Stiles carefully across the back seat. Well, he means to. From a fireman carry it’s more like being flopped into the back seat. Derek pauses a moment, considering.

“He still doesn’t smell right. I can’t place it.” Derek says, not sure if he and Scott should be more worried about the fact that they can’t tell if whatever’s going on with Stiles right now is natural or supernatural in origin or by the fact that, with their lives, it could legitimately be either or both of those things. They’re not equipped to deal with either. If there’s something else out here, it’s covered any sign of itself completely and that is not good news for anyone.

“Let’s go with both then. Are you okay to drive the jeep and I’ll follow over on my bike? I’ll call Deaton now to meet us there and my mom too, she’s off tonight so she should get there before we do.” He pauses a moment and looks around again as Derek nods in agreement, “What the hell was he doing out this far?”

Derek shrugs and hops in the front seat, keys fished from Stiles’ pocket are now in the ignition. He wants to speed to the clinic but he’s also acutely aware of how Stiles is unrestrained in the back and finds himself driving more carefully than a first time parent on the drive home from the hospital, very carefully and precisely as fast as the speed limit will allow the journey to safety to be completed. 

If Stiles were awake he would probably make a crack about Derek hunching over the steering wheel like that, rbf firmly in place, being particularly menacing to the pedestrians and fellow drivers. But Stiles is still not awake, another fact which Derek is acutely aware of. His heart rate has stayed the same, Derek hasn’t stopped listening. He feels slightly less panicked at having Stiles physically present, out of any obvious danger, intact. Something is just not sitting right with him, keeping him on edge even as the drive brings them closer to help.

After cursory exams by both Deaton and Melissa, they both rule that he is fine. Exhausted, but fine. Scott looks relieved to hear this but Derek can’t settle, rocks back on his heels. 

Deaton notices the movement and quirks a single eyebrow at him. “Derek, is there something you’d like to add to help illuminate this clinical picture?”

Derek looks like there is nothing in the world he wants to do less than sharing stories with Deaton but this could be important so he dives right in after a moment’s pause, “He doesn’t smell right.”

Melissa tries her best to hide her surprise at this but Derek sees it anyways, feels like he’s the one being examined in this moment instead of Stiles. Stiles who is laying still, stiller than he’s ever seen him, on the stainless steel table that they’re all too familiar with from the many misadventures that have plagued Beacon Hills over the years. Stiles is perpetually in motion, limbs restless even as he sleeps. This absolute stillness, save for the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest in time with his breathing, hurts Derek to watch. He’s inadvertently timed his breathing with Stiles’ to keep calm. 

Deaton presses his lips into a thin frown at that and places a hand on his chin, very closely resembling that freaking emoji Stiles loves. “For how long?”

Scott looks abashed and answers, “Um, a while. I think. Maybe. I don’t know when it started. Derek noticed it when he came back, it drew him right to Stiles when he got to town.”

Deaton raises both eyebrows at this news and purses his lips, something alight in his eyes. 

“And, uh, sleep. He hasn’t been sleeping.” Derek hates that he has to share this, this part of Stiles that only Derek sees. He feels like he’s betraying his trust with every word but if any of this will wake him up, keep him safe, put together these puzzle pieces, Derek would tell them every word he knows. 

Deaton looks as if he’s connecting some dots. Scott, being the good bro that he is, had doubled back to the grove to retrieve Stiles’ bag and Deaton is now opening it up and rifling briefly through the contents with a small noise or a hmmm every minute or so, not removing anything from inside so Derek and the others can see too.  

“I think what we’ve got here is a flicker.” Deaton says finally, setting the bag back down on the table beside Stiles. 

“A what?” Scott and Derek manage in near synchronicity. 

“Stiles learned how to be the spark needed to ignite the mountain ash, to protect those he cares about.”

“That was so long ago-“ Scott starts to protest. 

“I don’t think he ever stopped.” Deaton says, managing to sound both grave and vaguely impressed by the feat. 

“Plan of action is still rest though, right?” Melissa says, sharply assessing Deaton. Magical maladies had to fall well outside the realm of her nursing education and she looked ready to defer to Deaton on this one.

He nods, “For now, yes.” He glances up from Stiles’ prone form to glance up to Scott and Derek, “I’d like him to stop by when he wakes up. After hours, preferably. I do have an actual veterinary business to run here.”

  
  


***

 

Stiles’ relative lack of neighbors has always been generally a good thing for Derek. Climbing in windows, nobody to notice. Unconscious teenager being carried over the threshold bridal-style? Nobody to notice. This particular fact was the deciding factor in where to bring him when they’d been summarily dismissed by Deaton. That, and his pillow is here. Supposedly he can’t sleep without it but judging by the fact he’s been out cold for an unknown number of hours, Derek’s doubting that’s a big factor in this flicker situation.

Derek places him in his unmade bed and pulls the blanket back up over him, a mimicry of that first night back only a few weeks beforehand. He can’t even be comforted by the fact that the unmade bed, which finally smells of Stiles again, means that he’s actually been using it. He just barely resists the urge to smooth back Stiles’ hair off his forehead as he adjusts the top of the blanket near his face. He retreats out the doorway, returning not a minute later with a bottle of water from the fridge and a half-sleeve of saltines he’d found in the cabinet. They’d obviously missed dinner and Derek isn’t sure what kind of state his stomach will be in when he wakes so he figures the crackers are his safest bet. He places them on the bedside table before he slumps into the chair at the desk.

The sheriff would not be home tonight and Derek was leaving that on Scott and Melissa’s plate to alert him if they deemed it necessary. Stiles is supposedly fine and might even be recovered before his dad gets home. In the meantime, Derek is not leaving. He came back here because Stiles’ needed him and he’d already failed at keeping him safe. Deaton and Melissa had seemed so sure he just needed to sleep it off, whatever it was, but Derek was not leaving him defenseless here to do so.

Stiles accelerating heart rate wakes Derek a few hours later. He hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep or that he’d drawn the desk chair to be right next to the bed until he was jolted awake by the surge in energy in the room. 

Stiles doesn’t fully wake when Derek tries what has become their normal nightmare routine but it’s certainly an improvement from earlier. His heartbeat and breathing even back out, limbs settling into their own somewhat restless rhythm in a way that Derek takes as a much more reassuring sign of recovery than the earlier stillness. 

Derek’s not sure when exactly after school this had happened but from the point of time he’d found Stiles, he was definitely hitting a solid 12 hour block of sleep by the time morning rolls around and the sheriff’s cruiser pulls into the spot in front of the house. Stiles is definitely not making it to school or practice today and Derek is definitely not leaving right now so cue the awkward parent conversation.

He hears the older man set down his keys on the hallway table, sit down on the bottom stairs to take his boots off and place them in the hall closet, and quietly make his way up the steps. He hears John pause at the open door to Stiles’ room to take in the tableau and braces for whatever’s coming.

Instead, John just heaves a sigh and runs a hand down his tired face. “Still out? Melissa said she wasn’t sure how long he needed.”

Derek just nods once and turns his eyes back to where Stiles is still sleeping.

“I told her if he’s trying to balance his ledger on that account, he’s going to be sleeping for the next three months solid,” he tries a tired huff that’s almost a laugh at that but doesn’t quite manage. His shoulders are slumped, defeated or possibly almost guilty Derek thinks. “It’s about time this kid got some damn peace, he’s earned it.”

If Derek had any question as to whether or not the man had picked up on the sorry state of Stiles’ sleep habits, they were non-existent now. He’s leaning against the door frame like the weight of the world is upon him, like the weight of whatever he can’t fix for Stiles is slowly killing him too. Oddly enough, Derek knows the feeling and nods once more at John in agreement.

He steps into the room for just a moment, brushing the hair off Stiles’ forehead and ghosting the backs of his fingers over the shell of his son’s ear like a practiced moment between them. As he steps back, Derek is surprised to find a hand clasped on his shoulder but keeps his gaze fixed Stiles even as he feels John’s eyes on him. 

“I’m glad you’re back, son. I know it’s not easy for you. But I’m glad you’re back. It’s not your job to fix him, but you make a real difference here. I appreciate you being able to do whatever it is that I can’t- because I can’t watch him fray at the seams anymore and pretend not to notice, pretend he can keep carrying whatever his load is. He’s been getting better since you’ve been back. More like Stiles.”

Derek doesn’t know what to say to that so he says nothing, just lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding in the first place. What is it with Stilinski’s and getting under his skin? John gives his shoulder a brief squeeze before removing his hand and fiddling briefly with the blankets, picking at imaginary lint.

Derek doesn’t need his werewolf hearing to catch John whisper to Stiles as he smoothes the blankets again, “I wish you’d let me help you carry this.” With that, he turns out of the room and Derek can hear him tumble into his own bed down the hall, breathing evening out after just a few minutes.

  
  


***

  
  


Derek’s about to respond yet another “Same” to Scott’s 57th text message asking for a status update, thankful that he’d at least learned how to mute conversations so the vibration of the notification wouldn’t disturb Stiles’ much needed rest, when suddenly the status is not the same. It’s well into the afternoon and Stiles has just literally flopped over to his side, not even a sleepy roll but a full body flop, face scrunched in some sort of displeasure. Stiles has never been a morning person, as far as Derek could tell, but he wasn’t sure that’s what this was. Everything about this seems new, uncertain. 

Derek drops the phone and immediately has an arm on Stiles’ shoulder, “Stiles. Stiles? Hey.”

Stiles smiles dreamily up at him, “Mmmm, good, you’re still here. I hate waking up.”

Derek pulls his hand back quickly, not sure what to make of that other than he suddenly feels like he’s violating Stiles’ trust again somehow. 

“Stiles,” Derek says hesitantly- and that tone breaks whatever Stiles thought was happening here because the dreamy smile shutters in an instant and he’s sitting up way too fast and looking around wildly. 

“Derek-” Stiles just barely manages to eek out before his breathing becomes quick and ragged like he’s gulping for air and can’t find any.

He’s panicking. Derek knows exactly why. They’ve been here after the earliest nightmares when Derek would have to reassure him that he was here, was himself again, that the Nogitsune was gone. He just woke up in his room and doesn’t know how he got there, of course that would be triggering because blackouts and bodily autonomy have been out of his grasp too recently in his personal history, of fucking course, and Derek silently berates himself for not having thought of that during his overnight vigil. 

But he can deal with this. He has before. He holds his hands out in front of him, placating and unthreatening, places them on Stiles’ shoulders to ground him and keeps their eyes level. Stiles knows the drill.

“Stiles, you’re fine. Okay? Just breathe. Just like me, okay? Just breathe in. There you go. And again, just in and out,” Derek coaches from memory, doesn’t back a away when Stiles’ breathing finally eases up. “You’re okay, you’re safe, I promise. I’m here. You’re here. You’re you and you’re here. Okay?”

Stiles looks more terrified than okay but he nods anyways, “Okay.”

“Something happened yesterday, you were in the woods.” Derek definitely catches Stiles flinch at that no matter how quickly he tries to school his features.

“You found me?”

“I will always find you, Stiles.” Derek reminds him gently. “Scott and I took you to Deaton’s, he and Melissa said you needed to sleep it off so-” He removes his hands from Stiles to gesticulate around the room.

Now that Stiles is with it, Derek backs up and settles back onto the chair. He unscrews the lid off the bottle of water and hands it to Stiles who is still sitting up in the bed, trying to calm his heart rate, fidgeting and tapping out a rhythm with his fingers onto the blanket that’s pooled at his sides. 

Stiles downs the whole bottle and it seems to dawn on him that he’s got no idea how long he’s been out but he’s definitely very aware of his bladder’s urgent needs. He’s in and out in a minute, and sits back down on the edge of his bed across from Derek, somewhat shaky on his feet.

“Where’d you find me?” He asks quietly.

“In a copse of birch trees.” Derek says.

He’s been expecting any number of responses from Stiles, none of which are what he actually says which is, “Which one?” Though it looks like he realizes a second too late that’s not something he should’ve said.

“Stiles,” Derek says and looks up like he’s asking God for the strength to deal with this idiot. “Don’t think that’s not something we are most definitely coming back to. It was at the very edge of the preserve, far end of town and quite a ways off the trail. I’d ask if you remember what you were you doing there, but you clearly do. Care to share with the class? What’s going on out there, Stiles?”

Stiles somehow manages to look paler than he already did and is launching himself out of the bed looking for his shoes, trying to throw them on. “Keys, I need keys. Where’s my bag? I need my bag and my keys. That’s not enough. I need. I have to-”

The door downstairs flies open and Scott is up the stairs in a heartbeat, wrapping Stiles in a hug. John swoops down the hall and is at the door to his son’s room a few beats later, having heard the commotion. 

“The only place you’re going is back to see Deaton.” Derek says, arms crossed.

Scott steps back from Stiles and looks at him quizzically, he’d missed what precipitated that response from Derek in his bustle to get up here. Derek had responded promptly to all his texts, when the last had gone unanswered it meant either there was a change for the worse or the better. Both of those things required his presence so he made his excuses to Finstock and booked his way over to the Stilinski residence.

“Stiles apparently thinks he has places to be.” Derek says, not moving from his spot on the chair but positive the two men in the doorway are just as likely to let Stiles walk out of here as he is.

Scott and John both start to protest over one another and Stiles’ face just crumples.

“I have to.” He says, his quivering voice sounding a moment away from shattering.

Because Scott’s his bro, and they’ve presumably been on much worse adventures the details of which Derek does not want to imagine, he places his hand on Stiles arm and says, “Hey, I believe that you believe you have to go do whatever. I promise as soon as we go see Deaton for the all clear, I’ll go with you wherever you need to to go. You’re not alone.”

This statement appears to have the opposite effect on Stiles than intended but at least he looks resigned to his fate and before long, he’s freshened up and bundled into the car with John, Scott and Derek.

  
  


***

  
  


Deaton is ready for them when they get there, repeats his exam from the day prior, and holds Stiles’ messenger bag out to him upon completion. Stiles snatches it back quickly, holding it close to his chest like it’s something precious. 

Derek half expects a Gollum reference but Stiles is both oddly still and oddly silent, as if he’s waiting for some sort of pronouncement and has no words of his own for once. Derek crosses his arms in reaction to the tension filtering through the room, at the uncomfortable ache he feels at Stiles being so unlike himself right now. He was supposed to wake up and be fine. They said he would be fine. He promised Stiles that he was fine.

“How’s Isaac doing?” Deaton asks while he makes a note on his yellow steno pad, not even looking up at Stiles as he speaks.

“Fine.” Stiles answers immediately. He promptly looks equal parts mutinous and like he wants to swallow the words back down. 

“Stiles, you haven’t spoken to Isaac in-” Scott starts.

“And Jackson?”

“Great.” Stiles answers back again.

Deaton is wearing his grave but vaguely impressed face again. Derek doesn’t even know what to say to that. Scott is looking confused and John just moves to stand next to Stiles.

“What exactly are you getting at, doc? Melissa said something about a flicker?” John starts, his patience for Deaton’s cryptic bullshit clearly wearing thin. Derek is 100% on board with that. 

“Flicker?” Stiles says, looking rapidly from his dad to Scott, to Derek, then resting on Deaton.

“Explain.” Derek says.

“Ms. McCall thinks you’re experiencing some PTSD-like symptoms and insomnia.” Deaton starts and Stiles literally snorts, then shrugs like  _ what can you do? _ at his dad who gives him a sharp look and makes a rolling motion with his hand for Deaton to continue. “Your sleep avoidance coupled with however you’re managing to keep tabs on pack members on other continents, and probably on Derek here too until his recent return, is exhausting you in more ways than one.”

Scott and Derek are blatantly staring at Stiles right now, he’s clearly exerting himself in an effort not to squirm under their attention. He does anyways and his finger is tap tap tapping on the stainless steel table he’s sitting on after less than a minute of the loaded silence they’ve settled into. He ignores the thrumming in his head, ignores how he could feel along the pack bonds inside his head to have answered those questions so definitively, ignores that he knows what is coming next.

“What were you doing in the woods, Stiles?” Deaton asks calmly, like he already knows the answer but wants to hear it for himself. He’s in frustrating ex-emissary mentor mode now and is about to shift to either scolding teacher or proud teacher and nobody can be sure which.

Stiles looks for a moment like he’s not going to answer, juts his chin out defiantly and clutches the bag closer to his chest.

“Stiles,” Derek says, it’s a tentative thing, a gentle voice he’s not used to using in front of others but it has the desired effect of deflating Stiles.

“I have to.” He says just as quietly and brokenly as he did back at his house and it physically pains Derek to hear it, to see him like this. That same despair is pouring off him in waves again, like the last two weeks of getting better, getting settled back into himself were just gone. “I have to keep us safe, keep them safe.”

John puts an arm around his son, “You’re not alone in that. And some of us are better equipped than others to contribute, son.”

“I can contribute,” Stiles bites back probably more harsh and manic sounding than he means to, “I can do this. This I can do. I don’t need claws and fangs, I don’t want them. I don’t want to hear another scream sounding the loss of my family, my friends, my pack. I can’t. But I can do this.”

“What were you doing in the woods, Stiles?” Deaton repeats just as calmly, as if Stiles isn’t having a nervous breakdown in front of him.

“When I told him I found him in that copse of birch he asked which one.” Derek says, ignoring the betrayed look Stiles shoots him. 

“Birch,” Deaton says thoughtfully, more pieces sliding into place. “How many Stiles?”

“Seven.” Stiles supplies, sounding defeated.

Deaton actually takes a full step back at that, the biggest reaction any of them have ever seen from them.

“You’ve been maintaining  _ seven _ ?” Deaton says, still riding the fine line between scolding and proud, “ _ And _ intercontinental bonds?” 

“Seven  _ what _ ?” John and Scott ask at the same time as Derek is slowly pieces some things together himself.  

“Which sigils are you using?” Deaton asks and as Stiles draws some shapes in the air that Derek can’t make heads or tails of though Deaton’s eyebrows creep further up his face, so he can hazard a guess. “Stiles- you’d have to be renewing those at least-”

“Weekly,” Stiles supplies, shrinking further in on himself and John’s arm around him tightens reflexively.

“When I told you that you needed to be the spark to ignite the gunpowder, Stiles- when I made that analogy, I was wrong.”

Stiles looks stricken but Deaton continues, “A spark is a potential. Everyone has it within them, to an extent. What you have is not that, exactly. What you can do, Stiles, I don’t know that I’ve seen the likes of it. You’ve received the barest training on mostly mundane topics. I had no idea that you had been maintaining all this. I thought you were capable enough to fan a small spark and you were so enthusiastic, that this was just that spark being exhausted from exertion like a flicker when a fire burns down. I had an idea when I saw your bag and,” He glances meaningfully at Derek, “while this is certainly unexpected, I can’t say I’m surprised at how all the pieces have fallen. You’ve always made you own way, haven’t you Stiles.”

“I’ll say,” agrees John. “What are you saying here, doc. What’s this all mean. I’m out of my depth here.”

Deaton decides for once in his life to be mercifully more direct, “Between the physical and psychological strain Melissa has noted and now this, what can only be described as immense, effort on Stiles’ part I’m going to stick with the flicker analogy. But Stiles hasn’t just been working on being that spark of energy, of belief, of the will to protect- his hypervigilance or maybe just his sheer force of will has pushed him to an entirely different level that I wasn’t actually sure that someone who wasn’t born into it could wrap themselves around. But it’s too much. We’re lucky that he was cut off to bank his flame instead of burning out entirely.”

“Can that happen?” Derek asks before the others can.

“I’ve seen that, yes.” Deaton affirms.

“What happens then?” Scott asks, though Derek already knows and can tell from the mirrored set of John and Stiles’ shoulders that they know too.

“The same thing that happens to a candle when it can burn no longer, Scott. It goes out. It dies.”

Stiles continues to look resigned to his fate. John’s clearly trying to make the jump from his kid being traumatized and exhausted to his kid being both of those things but also some kind of magical tired. Scott is fidgeting restlessly, looking from Stiles to Deaton and back again as if a solution will just materialize if he looks hard enough.

“What are you doing to stop that?” Derek asks, arms still flexed across his chest and failing spectacularly at looking anything other than menacing. 

Deaton clicks his tongue and pulls together some things on the opposite table. Stiles doesn’t move from his position but Derek can tell he’s identifying and cataloguing the ingredients as Deaton grabs them.

“I can’t stop Stiles from doing what he thinks is necessary to protect his pack.” Deaton says as he turns around but before anyone can protest, he elaborates, “What I can do is prepare something to lessen the draw on Stiles from the others and strongly suggest that he either lets the sigils he’s been holding in the preserve burn out, share the burden, or risk burning out himself.”

With that, Deaton turns back to his task. He leaves the room for a few minutes and returns with a small amber glass bottle and a muslin sachet with some scribbles on it. Derek can’t make it out from where he’s standing and that was never his strong suit anyways. Peter was always better with this stuff. Stiles and Lydia were making some decent progress with their need to know all the things, though apparently Stiles progress had been more than decent.

Deaton hands Derek what looks to be a rose quartz in an elaborate web of knots which coalesce at the end of two open string ends. He nods towards Stiles as if to indicate he should be tying this on for him. So he does, quickly tying the ends into two slipknots so Stiles can adjust the length of the necklace to his comfort before the pendant falls under the collar of his shirt. 

Derek keeps his position, stays standing behind Stiles’ back after tying off the string ends. It feels protective, Derek at his back with Scott and John on either side of Stiles, like their physical presence alone can block out whatever is happening here.

Into the sachet Deaton places another small rose quartz, obsidian and amethyst along with a scoop of whatever that dry mixture in the bowl in front of him is and then hands the whole thing over the Stiles. 

Stiles barely reacts, looking down to see the markings just briefly before pocketing it and following Deaton’s movements again. Derek thinks again that Stiles is definitely cataloguing this and hopes it’s not because Stiles thinks he’s going to reverse whatever it is Deaton has deemed necessary here. Stiles has been right about so many things that have saved them both, saved them all, in the past. But Derek is siding with Deaton on this. 

He did not come back here, follow that pull, answer that call, have things finally feel like he could start to really settle in for once only to have Stiles crap out on him out of stubborness. That stubbornness had served him well these past few years, but not now. Not with this. Derek was okay letting this be the line in the sand.

The bowl Deaton had scooped out of, Derek realizes belatedly, is actually a mortar. When he hears the crunching of the pestle, he tears his eyes from Stiles and follows the sound. The contents of the mortar now powdered, Deaton funnels them into the glass jar he’d grabbed earlier and caps it before giving it several counterclockwise swirls and seven firm pats to his palm, face showing clear focus.

“Take a full dropper of this tonight, then three drops in the morning and evening thereafter.” Deaton says to Stiles, handing the bottle over to John’s outstretched hand. They take it as their cue to leave and just before the door shuts behind them all, Derek hears Deaton call out in a volume that definitely carries to the human ears in the group as well, “And Stiles, do not go back to the preserve alone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was a whole lot of plot in one big chunk. Thank you for sticking with this and the random update schedule. Extra brownie points if you caught the Alex Whitman reference in Scott's lines.


	9. You’re almost there. Keep going.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long break between chapters. There was a whole lot of life stuff and loss and I'm still trying to catch my breath. So sorry, I know I said I was going to be posting more frequently once April hit and yet April is now over with only this one update. Sorry!! 
> 
> I appreciate your patience in me getting this out to you. This fic will have a happy ending. We're at the midway point and we are getting there! Chapter title, as always, is from the prompt list in chapter one. Story title from “Ends of the Earth” by Lord Huron. 
> 
> Thanks to the ever delightful swlfangirl for reading this over for me. You are the best and I am so thankful for you in my life.

The silence on the ride home from Deaton’s is heavy. Scott and John look like they’re about to speak a few times, but don’t. Derek is following Stiles’ lead and keeping an eye on him in the mirror as he rides up front. Scott’s got an arm around him the whole way back to the Stilinski residence but Stiles spends the ride leaning his head against the cool window and staring out at the passing trees. When they arrive, Stiles heads right inside with Derek and Scott trailing in after John.

“I hate to run but I promised my mom I’d drop off dinner for her after practice tonight and I’m already running late,” Scott says looking to each of the others.

“We’re good, Scott. Get going, it’s fine.” John says.

Scott looks to Derek, who nods, before turning back toward the door and closing it behind him. John takes a deep breath in and slowly blows it out, eyes trained at the top of the stairs, before heading into the kitchen. Derek remains standing at the bottom of the stairs, conflicted about following up after Stiles or trying to make a plan with John. He can hear Stiles upstairs and takes comfort in knowing that he will be able to hear it if he tries to make a break for it, so he follows John into the kitchen.

“Michelob?” John asks, offering a silvery blue-labeled bottle to Derek as he enters the room.

Derek thinks there’s probably few times in his life that he would less like a drink than now, when he needs to stay sharp and figure this out. Werewolves don’t drink often as it is, it just doesn’t hit them the same way, but that’s not even real beer. He fails to catch the slight grimace that passes over his face before schooling his features, “No, thank you.”

John shrugs and sits down at the table with the open bottle himself, more out of habit than anything, and nods at the chair across from his own. Derek takes the hint and sits. He stays silent as he listens to Stiles upstairs.

“I’m supposed to head back in tonight.” The older man says after a minute, finally breaking the silence. He looks just as tired as he had when he came home that morning. “Do you think he’s going back out there tonight, where you found him?”

Derek pauses a moment before responding, “He hasn’t been going at night for however long this has been going on. I’m not sure how important timing is as a factor, but whatever he’s doing-”

“Which Dr. Deaton conveniently did not explain to us mere mortals.” John cuts in under his breath, but Derek catches it anyways.

“-doesn’t seem like he does outside of daytime hours.” Derek finishes.

“I hate to leave him like this. I thought I was handling this whole-” he gesticulates wildly, looking every bit Stiles’ father, “-supernatural thing pretty well, but I just… You know he only listens when he wants to and he finds his own way around every other time. What do I do with this?”

“We’ll figure it out.” Derek says as he moves to stand from the chair.

“You kids always seem to, somehow.” John says, standing up himself. He dumps his untouched beer down the drain and adds quietly, “I can’t lose him, too.”

They both head upstairs after that pronouncement, John to get ready for work and Derek to get into whatever the hell this new thing is with Stiles.

  


***

 

Derek is not surprised at the sight that greets him when he opens the door to Stiles’ room. There are books opened on the floor next to the desk, two tabs split-screened on the open laptop, several crystals and the sachet from Deaton’s next to it, and a notebook in which Stiles is furiously scribbling. The anxiety in the room is palpable. Derek keeps the silence up from his position in the doorway.

Just as he’d thought earlier that afternoon, Stiles was definitely paying attention. Stiles always was observant, Sheriff’s son that he is. The left side of the notebook has a list of ingredients, order, and quantities with question marks next to them. Derek can’t make heads or tails out of it but, much like Stiles boards with the color-coded strings, he’s sure Stiles can translate the scrawl into perfect sense at any moment he chooses to. Derek’s never been sure if Stiles writes his notes, findings and observations specifically in cryptic ciphers or if it just looks that way to an outside observer. With Stiles, it could honestly be either.

With one last scratch of the pencil, Stiles finally takes a deep breath in as if collecting himself and looks up at Derek for the first time since he entered the room. From the growing tension in his shoulders, Derek can tell he’s bracing for a confrontation but the last 24 hours has been such a rollercoaster that for once, Derek just cannot find it in him to give Stiles a hard time about this. There’s a tightness in his chest that unspools slightly being back in the same room, that Stiles is still here. He’s still figuring out just what this situation is that they’re facing and working out his thoughts as to how he can possibly help stop it from doing any further damage to Stiles. But, for now, he’s just comforted by Stiles being here and awake and okay. For a relative definition of okay, that is.

“New Hope or Empire Strikes Back?” Derek asks, stepping into the room to close up the open books on the floor and place them up on the top of the desk next to the laptop.

A myriad of emotions flicker across Stiles’ face in rapid succession before he settles on a tired smile, accepting the offering for what it is. “I’ll pretend that you didn’t ask that and know that the only right way is to start with A New Hope.”

Derek tosses him the crackers from the bedside table and he catches them, reflexes not quite up to usual but good enough.

“Queue it up. I think there’s still some grilled chicken in the fridge from the other day so I can pack a caesar salad for your dad before he goes and bring one up, if you feel up to eating.”

A strange look passes over Stiles face and he gives a quiet nod before munching a cracker.

  

***

 

Stiles is drooping on his half of the bed after the second movie, his whole side now leaning up against Derek’s and his head nearly coming to rest on his shoulder. Derek slowly closes the laptop sitting over both of their thighs and moves it over to the bedside table with the now empty cracker packet and the dishes from dinner.

“ ‘m not tired,” Stiles mumbles out, though his rough voice betrays just how false his words are.

“And Luke and Leia aren’t twins.” Derek deadpans. He gets up slowly, trying not to jostle Stiles too much and completely misses the frown that passes the younger man’s face at the separation.

Derek moves the laptop back to the desk, collects everything else to bring downstairs, and returns with a fresh bottle of water and the amber bottle from Deaton. Stiles hasn’t moved other than to cross his arms and he’s now wearing a look that Derek knows well.

“Are we really not gonna talk about it?”

“No, we’re really not-” Derek says. Stiles opens his mouth with a glint in his eye like he wants to say something cutting but Derek stops him with a quiet, “- not tonight.”

“I mean, who am I to complain about watching my favorite movies and being well-fed. I mean, I’m starting to worry that you’re feeding me so I’ll be a proper dinner for a witch in a gingerbread house somewhere in the woods but I’ve been out there enough to know there’s no such place- and that there’s no way you’re just letting me have this.”

Derek runs a hand down his face and just looks at Stiles from where he’s standing next to the bed. “Go to sleep, Stiles. It has been a long day- for everyone. Since I’m reasonably sure you don’t have it in you to pull a runner tonight, just sleep.”

“You’re seriously not going to grill me on this? No walls or steering wheels or anything?”

“Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it. I meant it when I said it the first time and I still mean it now, Stiles. We will deal with it. Together. Whatever ‘it’ is.” Derek hears Stiles take a shaky inhale, sees his hand clench and unclench at his side, but  he continues on, “Tomorrow, though. I promise there will be good coffee for you in the morning if you promise to actually sleep tonight.”

He makes a quiet noise of assent and gags down the dropperful of dark fluid from Deaton. Tinctures are the fucking worst. He washes it down with half the bottle of water, and climbs between his sheets as Derek turns off the lights and slips out of the room.

 

***

 

Stiles makes it to lunch time before he can’t stand it any longer. He’s been much more fidgety the whole morning and it wasn't from the promised coffee that was waiting in the jeep when he left that morning. Lydia and Kira shot him worried glances throughout their shared classes. When the bell rings to signify the end of the period, Stiles is first out the door and weaves his way through the hallways and right out the nearest door.

He’s just gotten to his jeep when Scott appears right behind him, quiet as can be. One or both of the girls must’ve texted him after his quick escape or Scott was just keeping a tighter watch on him his first day back. Stiles does not want a babysitter right now. His head feels a little fuzzy, he doesn’t feel right in his own skin, and he just wants to go.

“Going somewhere?” Scott asks innocently, leaning against the driver’s side of the car and conveniently blocking Stiles’ exit.

Stiles rolls his eyes at the weak attempt, “Scott. Please move.”

“Stiles,” Scott says, dropping the playful act and switch to his worried puppy eyes, “what’s going on man? It’s the middle of the school day. You can’t just leave unless there’s an emergency- wait, is there an emergency?!”

“Oh my God, Scott. I can’t-” Stiles pulls at his hair, “I just can’t be here right now, okay. It’s not an emergency it’s just-”

“Flicker stuff?” Scott hazards a guess.

“Yeah, man.” Stiles sighs, sounding both tired and relieved at not having to explain the feelings he cannot put into words. “Flicker stuff. I just have to go. Okay?”

“Home? You’re going home, right?”

“Yes, dad. I’m going home.” Stiles says, summoning his mightiest eye roll to really sell it.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Stiles. Text me when you get there.” Scott says, giving Stiles a half hug before trotting back into the school before he misses the rest of his own lunch period, the only one that most of the pack has at the same time.

 

***

 

Surprisingly, Stiles does actually go home and ignores the pull he feels to the woods. Derek finds him sprawled amongst the books in his room making more notes and periodically looking at his phone like he’s waiting for something. Derek clears his throat from his perch on the window and Stiles flails hard, falling sidelong into his desk chair from his position on the floor. He levels Derek a glare as he rubs the side of his head and finds his spot on the book he was copying from.

“Hey,” Derek offers as a conversation starter at Stile’s continued silence.

“Hey, yourself.” Stiles responds curtly.

“What are you working on?”

Stiles huffs and shoves a paper into the book to mark his spot before closing it and leaning back against his desk, arms crossed and facial expression closing down.

“Do you want the real answer to that or do you just want me to tell you that I’m not planning on reversing what Deaton’s trying to do?”

“Both, if that’s the truth but considering I heard your heart when you said that second one how about we go with option A and then we talk about how stupid option B is?”

“I can’t stop, Derek. The work I’m doing, the birch sigils, they’ve been working. They’ve kept the pack safe- made Beacon Hills safer than it’s been in years. I can’t just stop. The Nemeton is like a literal beacon and things will come for that sort of power, will answer that call.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just turn off the beacon than to, what, block the signal? Is that what you’re doing?”

“I mean, not intentionally. That wasn’t the goal but if that’s what the end result had be to achieve it then yeah, basically I’m blocking the signal. But the point was the protection, Derek. I can’t lose any of them,” Stiles says and they both hear the unspoken I can’t lose you that goes along with it.

“So let’s turn it off. It will stop drawing attention if we can just stop the signal, right?”

“Would if I could, Derek. But, fun story, it’s literally tied to me. Tied to Scott, too actually. We can’t just turn it off because this flicker crap is probably nothing compared to what that thing will do when it’s got a piece of your freaking soul and you’re trying to kill it.”

“What?”

Stiles ignores him and plows on, “But the sigils, right, so they’ve been working and that’s great, only apparently they’re also literally killing me, so I’m working on a work around since dying is generally something I try to avoid. I can’t stop but maybe- maybe what Scott, Lydia and you keep telling me is the piece of the puzzle that I’m missing.”

Derek quirks his eyebrows at that in question.

“I’m not alone in this.”

There’s a beat of silence as the pieces come together for Derek, “No, you’re not alone. You have a pack.”

“A pack I’m protecting.”

“A pack protects itself; we all protect each other.” Derek says firmly.

“Exactly.” Stiles says, grinning.

 

***

 

They’re all packed into Derek’s living room after school. Stiles had sent out the text after his aha moment and now his space is flooded with teenagers. Again. No place is sacred apparently. Derek has his best grouchy face on but Stiles bumps into his shoulder playfully as he reaches over to grab a mini doughnut from the menagerie of snacks Lydia had brought with her. Having his space filled with pack actually makes him happy, having Stiles in his space in particular makes him immensely happy.

Derek tries not to think about the ones that should be here but are lost to them because he wasn’t enough. He has to be enough this time. He is not going to let them lose Stiles too. He’s heard the nutshell version of this plan and it sounds decent, in theory. He hopes it will be enough.

Once everyone is settled in and fed enough to pay attention, Stiles begins. His knee is bobbing up and down at a rapid pace and he speaks to the other teens as if he’s an instructor at Hogwarts and these are ickle first-years who don’t know a thing about magic (he’s only half off with that assessment, honestly), “Birch has been rooted in traditions of warding away evils, driving out existing negative energies, and protecting. Pairing live birch trees with these carefully designed sigils at strategic locations around Beacon Hills-”

“Is basically like putting up an electric fence for ne'er do wells and creatures of the night?” Lydia finishes, cottoning on quickly to Stiles’ train of thought as she eyes the diagrams of the sigils and runs a perfectly manicured nail along one of the marked locations on the map.

Stiles beams at her, “Yup. Excellent analogy.”

“And what about all these?” Malia points at the collection or crystals that are interspersed on the table between all the snack options. “These aren’t Lydia’s. They don’t smell like her, they don’t smell right. And they were here already when we got here.”

“And they don’t exactly match the decor,” Kira adds with a nod, smiling at Malia for her observations. She looks over to Stiles,  “So are they part of this?”

Lydia lines them all up on the edge of the table as she ticks off the names one by one, “Rose quartz, smoky quartz, garnet, onyx, fluorite, tourmaline, tourmalinated amethyst and jasper, amber, and bismuth.”

Stiles explains, “Each has their own protective properties, but together with the sigils, the interconnectedness of the living birch, and the telluric currents-”

“Everything is magnified.” Lydia concludes, nodding her head appreciatively. “Stiles, this is-”

“A lot.” Derek cuts in. “This is a lot. And Stiles has been doing this all himself. For months.”

All the heads in the room whip from Derek to Stiles and he has the grace to at least look abashed for a moment before steeling himself and barreling on, “But they’re working. They’re short term, so they need maintenance, but they’ve been working guys.”

“That ‘not right’ that you noticed, Malia,” Scott interjects, “that’s Stiles. That’s the scent of Stiles burning himself out to do this for us.”

Kira gasps and everyone else looks various stages of shocked or furious.

Stiles runs a hand through his hair and taps out a rhythm on his bouncing knee, “Yes, yes. I get it. Consider me suitably chastised. But that’s why we are here.”

“What’s the play here?” Scott asks.

“Deaton didn’t say I had to stop. He said not to go alone.” Stiles says, sounding happier than he has all afternoon.

“So, that’s it?” Scott asks, sounding hesitant that it could be that simple a fix.

“Well,” Stiles starts, scrunching up his face and huffing out a nervous breath. “He said something about sharing the load so if I had help from each of you in maintaining just one of them, between the lot of us, they can all stay active and keep everything as it’s been.”

“Without you turning into toast.” Scott concludes.

“Well, werewolves have great energy and they heal really well so, if anything, this may work out much better with pack involvement.” Lydia states as she stands, knocks Stiles in the shoulder as she does and gives him a look that is somehow both scathing and fond at the same time. “You should’ve told us sooner.”

“That’s it?” Stiles asks disbelievingly. “You’re all on board with this?”

He’s met by shrugs all around as everyone makes to gather their belongings.

“Of course we are, Stiles. We are pack and if this is what’s going to keep us safe, keep you safe, we’re doing it.” Scott supplies, slinging an arm across Kira’s shoulders as they head for the door.

“Text us a copy of the rotation schedule.” Lydia says on her way out the door, the rest of the pack slowly trickle out after her. That she knew he’d already made up the schedule as part of the planning phase was a testament to how much that strawberry blonde goddess got him and how his mind works. He fucking loves these people, his pack, and they clearly care too.

“Well,” Stiles says looking up at Derek, gobsmacked, “that went a lot better than I thought it would. What happened to people arguing with my plan needlessly, causing delays in acting on them reasonably before it turns out to save them in the end? Nobody ever just agrees to my plans. I just said ‘jump’ and they are all basically on board the ‘how high’ train all of the sudden?”

Derek shrugs too and moves to clean up what’s left of the snackfest from the living room.

“Laura told me once that not everything in life has to be a battle. It’s ok to accept help here, Stiles.” He says quietly and Stiles just watches him head into the kitchen.

 

***

 

Derek and Stiles are in the jeep driving up the bumpy path to the where the Hale House used to sit. They pull to a halt and Stiles shifts into park, Derek already out of the car before he’s even reached his seatbelt. He’s feeling fuzzier and trying to stay alert, afternoon coffee stop not really taking the edge off his exhaustion as he clambers around to where Derek stands stiffly.

Derek had seen Stiles’ map when he’d transcribed his thoughts for the pack meeting, so this shouldn’t hit him as a surprise but from the tension in his posture Stiles is realizing that maybe it is. He reaches out a hand to Derek’s shoulder but pulls it back at the last moment.

Derek turns to him, “This is today’s?”

“No. This was yesterday’s. I’ve been trying to keep on them in twos and threes since a daily schedule would’ve been obvious- but I guess I don’t have to worry about anyone stopping me now. We have to do this one to get everything within dates and then we can start the rotation with today’s in the woods past the cross country trail behind the school. We’re working clockwise for the protection charms.” He says, leading the way to where his selection of birch trees sit on this property.

Derek stops abruptly, reaching up to quickly grab Stiles by the elbow. “Stiles.”

“You’re almost there. Keep going.” He says, the dullness of all his senses resulting in a processing delay of the urgency of Derek’s tone but something in him warms at the contact.

He gets it a moment too late when he’s stopped from stepping forward. Derek pulls Stiles behind him and cocks his head to the side, nostrils flaring as he takes in the scents on the breeze.

“About how long do you think it would take something to notice the signal if one of these went down?” Derek asks so quietly Stiles almost misses it, eyes scanning the perimeter.

“Depends on their proximity, I suppose. If they were already in the neighborhood of Beacon Hills they shouldn’t be any more drawn to it than before the Nemeton woke up, but if a sigil drops it would theoretically open a door to the signal on that slice of the pie, so to speak. But if the others were still active, they’d still be kind of like walls still dampening the signal between each of the ther points. Why do you-” and with a gut-churning realization, it clicks and Stiles wrenches free from Derek’s grasp booking it further into the woods.

He’s at the section of birch trees in less than a minute, Derek on his heels growling in frustration. He can sense the glower directed at him even with his back to Derek, as if to say really, Stiles?

A circle of mushrooms has sprouted around the base of the birch trees and Stiles just stares, takes a breath and steps towards it.

Derek grabs his arm again, halting his progress. “I tell you there could be a threat and you run towards it. You see something that gives you pause and you keep going?” He grunts out in agitation.

Stiles rolls his eyes and huffs out, “Don’t I always? Pretty sure that train of thought has saved your wolfy ass more than once but by all means, school me here. Where’s the threat?”

Derek looks around and comes up empty, the tension doesn’t leave him but he drops Stiles’ arm. “Not here, now. Something was though. It doesn’t smell like the other one here and it doesn’t smell like it should.”

Stiles nods at the mushrooms, “That’s new as well, I’ll give you that. But we need to do this and get on with today’s so let’s get to it.”

Stiles uses a spring of birch he pulls from his bag to draw something in the soft earth at the base of the group of trees. He arranges the crystals in his bag at specific points and nods Derek forward.

He hands him a small bag of ash and says, “Sprinkle this here- it’s birch ash not mountain ash, don’t give me that look- exactly over the pattern I traced inside the stones. Then put you hands over it with intention. Like the mountain ash, there’s a big ‘believe’ component to this so even if you don’t feel it like I do I need you to at least believe that it’s going to do exactly what I want it to. Okay?”

Derek nods and with one last look around he kneels down, trying to stay as alert to their surroundings as possible while still giving as much of his focus to doing as Stiles had instructed. Once he has, he looks up to Stiles for further direction but finds that Stiles has kneeled across from him and places his own paler hands over Derek’s.

“I’ve never done this part with anybody so like bear with me. You may or may not feel something but stick with me here and stop me if it’s too much. Okay?”

Derek nods again, breathe caught in his chest. He feels a thrum of energy where his hand and Stiles’ are together on the ground. Stiles eyes are closed, brow furrowed in concentration and Derek is staring at him until he remembers he’s supposed to be helping here, to be focusing. So he closes his eyes to and focuses on closing the door, on protecting the pack, on protecting Stiles. With that last thought he feels that thrum of energy pulse at their joined hands, would almost swear that it he opened his eyes right now he’d see something tying him to Stiles somehow because in this moment he feels they are in tune, connected, in a way that feels both physical and transcendent of that.

Stiles pulls away first, a smile tugs at his lips. “I think this is going to work.”

He pulls a small glass vial from his bag and pours it over the sigil, following the pattern and soaks it into the earth and down to the roots of the trees around them. He pockets the flask and traces the sigil again with his finger. He stands abruptly, takes a long stride to the nearest tree and reaches up above eye level to the south facing side of the tree to trace his muddy, ashen finger into the same sigil carved in a smaller version into the bark. When he’s done he place both hands over it, like he’s in a silent prayer and rests his head against the tree.

After a moment, Stiles steps back on slightly unsturdy footing and Derek is immediately at his back to steady him. “Was this ok? Did it help to not do it alone?” His hands rest on Stiles’ shoulders as he gives him a once over with his eyes, as if he could see some sort of physical manifestation of this burning Stiles out more than he already was.

“Definitely,” Stiles grins at him, albeit tiredly. “One down, one to go. Then we need to eat dinner because I am starving.”

 

***

 

The first week goes by without a hitch. The pack takes easily to helping Stiles with the barricade, as they’ve taken to calling it. The only noted effect from it is that they’re all hungrier on their day and Stiles is suddenly hungry all the time. He doesn’t take off the rose quartz around his neck, the sachet from Deaton stays in his pocket, and he’s been downing his tincture as prescribed like a good little patient.

But he doesn’t feel good. If anything, he feels worse.

The protective sigils aren’t taking as much out of him now that he’s got willing help on the required energy output from his superhealing werewolf friends. But something is draining him and he can’t put his finger on it. He’s sleeping, he’s supposed to feel better. He asks Deaton about it and gets a cryptic response on staying the course with the tincture and the sachet, that it will take time.

He can’t take it, he’s crawling out of his skin by the time he leaves practice and heads to Derek’s apartment to hit up the sigil of the day and dinner. The second he makes it up the stairs and through the door, Derek’s in his space and looking like a worried mother hen.

“What happened?”

“What? I- nothing. Nothing happened.” Stiles responds sluggishly.

Derek gets him seated on the couch and thrusts a glass of water into his hand, grunting, “Drink.”

Derek’s frowning at him, “Your pulse is too high and you’re sweating.”

“It’s called lacrosse practice. It’s something idiotic teenagers of Beacon Hills do to pass the time when they’re not nearly dying or saving their friends from imminent doom.” Stiles says, trying to brush him off though he can feel the panic that’s been boiling under his skin all day starting to rise to the surface. But he can’t right now, he has things to do so he takes a deep breath and shoves that overwhelming sensation down as deep as he can. “Let’s get out there and get this done for the day. I’m starving and you said tonight was going to be a ziti night since dad’s working. I’m holding you to that. You know baked ziti holds the second favorite place in my heart after the majesty that is curly fries. Ziti is life, Derek. Ziti is life. And there will be no leftovers because I cannot risk my father having that much cheese and carbs in one sitting so let’s get to it.”

Derek doesn’t believe him for a second that he’s still worked up from practice but he lets it slide long enough to complete their tasks and get Stiles fed because he can, at least, do that and needs must. He wants to drive Stiles home, but doesn’t. He gets the distinct impression that Stiles is playing up the worrying over nothing angle, which is rich coming from someone who passed out in the woods from overexertion just a week prior.

Stiles always texts when he gets home from Derek’s. Never a normal ‘got home safe’ but usually some random thought. Tonight’s random thought that lets Derek know that Stiles is home and winding down for the night is ‘ziti is life’ and he assumes that’s all he will hear from Stiles until whatever superfluous thought he wakes up with in the morning before they meet up briefly in the line at the coffee shop before school. When he times it right, he can get the coffee order in before Stiles gets there and make it a half-caf. He’s only half reading his book in bed and it’s much later that night as Derek is thinking about when to time his run tomorrow morning to achieve the half-caf mission when his phone rings.

Not the quiet ping of a text but outright ringing, startling him from his thoughts. The only people who have this number are pack and pack adjacent, and the only one with that stupid old phone ringtone which he’d set himself while fiddling with Derek’s phone earlier that week while he cooked, was Stiles. He flung himself out of bed to where the phone was charging on a shelf in the living room and hit the green answer button before the third ring stopped shrilly breaking through the late night silence.

“Stiles?” He breathes out, trying not to panic though he feels it rising in his chest.

People call all the time in the middle of the night and it doesn’t have to be an emergency, right?

Except that’s not how his life goes and he can hear Stiles’ labored breathing over the phone.

He’s already in his car and trying to calm Stiles down with what’s become a sort of normal script for them, except obviously with the distance it’s harder to get him to breathe in time with his own breaths and calm down. He doesn’t know how to do the phone tracking thing yet, hasn’t asked Scott or Lydia, and Stiles couldn’t answer when he asked where he was but Derek knows that he’s home. He knows he’s not in imminent danger, knows he’s panicked and hurting all the same. He knows he has to be there now. Stiles needs him.

 


	10. You can trust me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the kudos and comments on this fic. Seriously, you are carrying me through life each day when I get your lovely notifications. Thank you. So much.
> 
> This chapter is panic-heavy and references canonical character deaths so if either of those are a trigger for you, I suggest having somebody read through this for you first. I wrote this as I was coming off a panic attack of my own so what was initially intended to be a fluffier chapter turned into 2.7k of this. Stick with me though because this chapter brings progress with it and has a promising ending.

He knows the sheriff is working tonight by the fact they’d had dinner at his apartment and that the cruiser isn’t parked at the house when Derek parks. He hadn’t even contemplated disconnecting the call to get a hold of John, he just went. He stays on the line with Stiles, tries to calm him or even get a response out of him besides rasping breaths, until he’s in his room and gently prizing open his fingers to take the phone from Stiles’ hand and set it aside.

He’s a sweaty mess, tangled in his sheets. He clutches Derek’s shirt like his life depends on it and stares at him with wide, fearful eyes. Derek can hear his heart pounding out a rapid pace in his chest as he struggles to get the words out.

“You’re okay. Just breathe. I’m here. It’s okay. Just breathe. We’re okay.” Derek says, hands sliding up and down Stiles’ arms from his shoulders in a comforting gesture. This seems different than a post-nightmare remnant panic. He’s not sure his words are helping to bring Stiles back down but he just keeps safely reassuring him and hoping it does. 

He’s not expecting Stiles to burrow into him in response, but he does. Stiles buries his head right into the curve of Derek’s neck and shoulder and struggles to breath as his hands continue clutch Derek’s shirt. This is new. Derek does his best not to freeze, to keep murmuring comfortingly at Stiles.

He moves a hand to lightly clasp the back of Stiles’ neck, his head still resting on Derek, and the other hand moves to sweep light, calming motions over Stiles’ back. When his breathing finally steadies a bit and his heart rate slows to a slightly less alarming pace, Derek can still feel the terror rolling off of him in waves.

“I-” Stiles starts and stops, the fists still clenching the thin fabric of Derek’s t-shirt spasm involuntarily as a shiver runs through his whole body. He knocks his head against Derek’s shoulder twice and tries to burrow closer, the angle awkward with how he’s tangled in the sheets and how Derek’s seated, twisted on the upper edge of the bed.

“You can trust me.” Derek say quietly, hands still moving soothingly.

This earns him a small, startled laugh and Stiles sinks further into his shoulder but Derek feels his shoulders tense up under his touch.

“I know I can. I know I can trust you, Derek. You, out of everyone, I trust. It’s just-” He’s bordering on rambling and it looks like it pains him to speak and to separate from Derek as he pulls back a bit to look at him. His eyes search Derek’s face like he’s making sure he’s real and he’s here.

“Something’s wrong. I can’t-” Stiles draws in a shaky breath, “I can’t feel them anymore. But I can still feel you. Barely.” Stiles croaks out, like the words have been ripped from him and then his body lurches away from Derek and he’s throwing up black goo on the foot of the bed. 

And there’s that panic Derek felt building in his chest earlier, rising up again. He closes his eyes tightly and sucks in a deep breath as he pulls Stiles closer to the head of the bed and away from the mess. 

Shit.

_ Lessen the draw on Stiles from the others. _

Derek knows what it feels like to be severed from your whole pack. He even knows what it feels like to feel those bonds snuffed out one at a time. It is the fucking worst. This was basically torture. This was not what was supposed to happen. This is not what he thought Deaton meant. Derek helped to do this, had been making sure he was taking it and had been letting Stiles brush off the signs that he wasn’t feeling right. Ignorance is not bliss. Derek knows how this feels and knows there must be a way to reverse it, Stiles has notes and they have Deaton. He’s going to fix this. 

He brings his hands up from where they rest on Stiles’ arms to cup his face, “Look. I am right here. I am fine. You can feel me and I’m not going anywhere. Our bond is not one that can be broken, okay? I’m sure the others are fine too because I can feel them- Scott, Kira, Malia, Liam, even Lydia. I still feel them, they’re fine. I think it’s just a side effect. Let’s get you to Deaton’s. It’s fine. You’re gonna be fine, Stiles. Okay? I can still feel you. I can feel you. Always.”

  
  


***

  
  


Scott’s throwing open the door to the clinic before Derek even finishes parking, “He’s not here yet. Get him in, get him inside.”

Scott helps usher them in, helping Stiles up onto the cool metal exam table that is suitable for the intended patients of this clinic but not so much for the humans and humanoids Deaton’s been treating with increasing frequency.

“Bro, I’m gross.” Stiles says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and grimacing. “You don’t need to help me up. You don’t want to touch me right now, I don’t even want to touch me.”

Derek had spare clothes for Stiles in his car, but he wasn’t going to leave him here to go grab them even with Scott by his side just so he could feel less gross. He had some for everyone in the pack because really you never know when you’re going to need it, Stiles had pointed out once. He wasn’t wrong. Derek’s own mother kept her own trunk similarly stocked, especially because her own full shift definitely resulted in the need for some readily available outfit changes.

When Deaton arrives a few minutes later having gotten the same Stiles SOS text Derek had sent Scott, Derek explains why he’s dragged them all here in the middle of the night. Deaton doesn’t look the slightest bit surprised until Stiles pitches forward again and paints the vet’s pristinely sanitized floor with more black emesis. The closest thing Derek can equate it to is when a wolf is reacting to wolfsbane, but Stiles isn’t-

“Well, now.” Deaton says, eyeing him carefully.

Stiles all but glares back at him, gagging a little more as he wipes again at his mouth and spits out, “Really?! Really, that’s all you got for me?”

Deaton gloves up to swipe a finger through the goo, rubs in between his fingers like he’s checking for consistency or something while the boys just stare at him like he’s insane. He probably is. Derek never really could tell what his deal was.

“You said you were going to lessen the pull on him from this others,” Derek says, frown firmly in place as he stands with his left arm pressed up against Stiles’ right. “Is this you? Did you do this?”

Scott’s eyes go wide as he looks between his friends and his boss, “Wait, what? Are you doing this? Why is it making Stiles sick?”

“Gotta say, doc, I am feeling pretty shitty. Do you have an antidote handy or something? Sourwolf over here put the kibosh on my attempts to look into that,” Stiles says, pointedly rocking to knock his shoulder into Derek’s.

“Well, I must say, I didn’t intend to fully sever your perceptions of all the bonds just to lessen your perception of them so they would pull less from you. Stiles you must know the energy it takes to maintain those bonds, particularly with Mr. Lahey and Mr. Whittemore, is far too large a burden. It would seem,” he says, nodding to the mess while removing his glove to place in the trash, “the your body is rejecting this attempt. You seem to be having a visceral reaction to the reduced perception of the bonds you maintain and your body, or your spark, however you’d prefer to look at it- you’re literally rejecting my magic and forcing it out of you. Judging by the volume of this and your coloring, I’d say that instead of lessening the pull on your energy you’re trying even harder to maintain them. It may very well be in your best interest to cease that tincture. Working you double time was not the intention.”

Scott looks horrified. Math has never been his strong suit but even he can put together that Stiles working harder and expending even more energy did not bode well for the burning out potentiality that they were looking to avoid.

“The sachet too?” Stiles grumbles at the older man and gets a nod in return. The sachet is promptly removed from his pocket and launched to the far side of the room with as much energy as Stiles can muster for a left-handed throw. His right hand clutches Derek’s wrist and he chalks it up to needing physical reassurance that he’s there and the pack is fine.

“And the pendant?” Derek questions, but Stiles squeezes his wrist a bit at that and both their eyes land on said item. 

Stiles left hand reaches up to the rose quartz that Derek had put on him last week. His fingers tapping out a familiar rhythm on the smooth surface of the stone.

“That stays. I believe it is continuing to anchor you, as intended,” Deaton looks thoughtfully between them, “Give me a moment. I don’t exactly have an antidote but we may be able to speed up the excretion and neutralize whatever’s left so that your body can reacclimate.”

“Why do you do that?” Scott asks after Deaton steps out of the room.

“Huh?” Stiles asks tiredly.

“You’re constantly tapping. You’re literally doing it right now.”

“ADHD? I haven’t taken my adderall in-”

“It’s always in time with Derek’s heartbeat, dude. It’s almost creepy.”  Scott says as he starts to clean up the mess splattered on the floor like a truly good bro.

Before either of them can think too much about what Scott’s just said, Deaton returns with a clearing of his throat. He carries with him a basin, a small medicine cup, a black capsule, and a glass of water with what looks like lavender and chamomile floating in it. 

Stiles sniffs at the medicine cup and makes a face of disgust, “Carapichea ipecacuanha? Come on!”

But without any further comment he downs it and the water before heaving it all back up and then some into the basin. Derek’s got a comforting hand resting between Stiles’ shoulder blades and Scott’s swapping the basin out with a fresh one and topping off the glass of water while Deaton looks on.

Once the only thing coming up is normal bile, Deaton smiles. “That was very efficient of you, though I’m surprised it took you so long to have a reaction, if you were going to. I suppose it had to reach a certain level of efficacy before the panic response triggered the remediation set in though. Take that and get some rest.”

Stiles swallows down the black pill, quietly mutters to himself about how it must be activated charcoal and wonders if it has been additionally charmed to help with this particular ingested concoction. He finishes the last dregs of his water and Derek bundles him back off towards the car with his no nonsense face on. Scott shoots him a look and stays to finish cleaning up and also, presumably, to grill Deaton about what the hell they’re supposed to do about Stiles draining himself now that he’s expedited the process.

Derek doesn’t bother grabbing the fresh clothes from the trunk, though he does speed a bit on the way back to the house. He can feel the anxiety radiating off of Stiles and just wants to get him home, safe, and comfortable as possible. He can fix this. They’re fixing it. 

He politely ignores Stiles aborted movements to reach for him every time he falls asleep on the ride over and jostles awake with a start. Derek being the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes seems to bring his panic response back down to tolerable levels and that’s got to be a plus. He tries not to examine it too deeply. He’s here because Stiles needs him to be and that’s all that matters in this moment. 

  
  


***

  
  


After what feels like the most beautiful and magnificent shower to ever shower, Stiles emerges out of the bathroom in fresh clothes. He’s got a loose fitting tee and his softest pair of basketball shorts on and his bed is just calling his name like a choir of angels in the heavens. This is exactly what he needs. 

Derek’s chilling in the desk chair like he owns it, shoes off and set beneath the window like he’s planning on staying a while but also prepped for a quick escape. So Derek. He doubts the dude is ever in a room without analyzing every escape route and point of vulnerability, but hey Stiles has no room to talk in that because he does exactly the same. It’s kept them alive so far so the hypervigilance must be working for them.

Stiles smiles fondly and strokes a hand over the back of Derek’s neck on the way to become a blanket burrito in his freshly made bed. He will not ever tease Derek about his secret Martha Stewart side because a) his cooking is fucking delicious and b) how could you ever complain about somebody stripping your vomit covered sheets like it ain’t no thang.

Burrito status finally realized, Stiles reaches a hand up to grasp the rose quartz at his neck. He tap tap taps that same comforting beat that thrums through his head and takes a deep breath, if it really is Derek’s heartbeat he’s tapping he surprisingly does not find that creepy at all. It’s reassuring. Derek is here. He’s fine. He can feel him again, better than earlier at least. Scott too, the tiniest bit. But not the others, not yet, and he can feel himself reaching for those ties that bind and coming up empty in the void. 

After Erica, Boyd and Alison he just can't cope with another loss and waking up from a dead sleep to feel nothing- he had to  _ search _ to find Derek, and even then it was only once he managed to speed dial him and hear his voice that he found the edge of the thread- he panicked. He thought he lost them all and he couldn’t breathe with the weight of that. 

The effort to dampen the pull of the bonds felt like a loss to him and backfired spectacularly. Deaton thought it would make things easier on Stiles but instead he only got more burnt out and all of his senses and processes faded while the core of him struggled to compensate, to maintain its connection to them. He doesn’t want to think about how Derek’s lived through that being his reality. Twice. That there is no shitty tincture causing his feeling of loss, no magical expulsion of that feeling for Derek. 

“Go to sleep, Stiles.” Derek says from the chair.

And he tries, really he does. He is bone deep exhausted and being a blanket burrito is one of life’s greatest joys but he can’t sleep. Every time he closes his eyes he feels the absence, the lingering effects of prolonged use of Deaton’s tincture. The panic burbles up again every time he closes his eyes. He clutches the pendant like a lifeline, like the anchor Deaton said it was. 

It doesn’t help.

He tosses and turns, as much as one can without disrupting the integrity of their burrito.

That doesn’t help either and a frustrated whine escapes him before he can help it.

Derek lets out an extremely put upon sigh and gets up from the chair. He nudges Stiles over and Stiles makes some space willingly. Derek lays down beside him and this, he thinks, is definitely new. New but not unwelcome.

His potential train of thought is interrupted by a massive yawn.

“Go to sleep, Stiles.” Derek repeats, more softly this time.

And with Derek’s warm, solid presence next to him, with the heartbeat he thinks he can practically feel through the blanket that separates them, with the sound of him softly breathing just right there- Stiles does fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned: next chapter we shall see if something really did make it's way into Beacon Hills while Stiles was down for the count.
> 
> The Sterek Smooch art & fic submissions started posting this past weekend so check those out (on tumblr or the AO3 collection) in the meantime because there's a lot of super cute stuff.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at [9timesoutoften](https://9timesoutoften.tumblr.com/) where all asks and prompts are answered in some form and very occasionally posted and where you can always reach out to me to talk Sterek


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